Temperance
by StitchGrl
Summary: UPDATED Chapter 22: Good Luck, Christine ; Final Chapter. It's over now, guys - and THANK YOU ALL. Hugs and Kisses.
1. Default Chapter

Note from Author: this is the same story that I once wrote, however, I chose to rewrite the last bits of it and to continue to finish this story. It's been too long  Thanks to everyone who's read it in the past when it was under my other penname babygx; all ur reviews are greatly appreciated!

TEMPERANCE

**_"She had all but forgotten the kiss they had exchanged when they said goodbye." House of the Spirits_**

Do they all forget who I am or has my past been sculpted into a fable with no  
morals of any kind? There lies no prime reason why the history of our  
relationship has been misunderstood, and I still stand to understate the  
understatement in that line. The world is incapable of comprehending the rare  
and unusual born to this earth, and I am tired of feigning my need for  
sincerity. I am sick of playing the death who lives in night.

My half-brother has never seen past the anterior layer of this mask,  
and presumably he never will. The squealing admirers and beauty-lovers will  
follow him down his path of useless existence while I remain cold and  
untouched in the darkest corners of my improper burial.

But I preserve my peace along with a vivid memory of the moments I had  
experienced victory, and the greatest depths of love. I hold what is  
inextinguishable in my mind and do not release that flame for an eternity of  
heaven or hell.

But I am warning you, I will write only what I am capable of reproducing. This is no Shakespeare drama, nor is it a fairy tale, for both of these genres end excessively happy or morose – we are leveled somewhere in between the two separate worlds where a thin line holds it place. In return, I suggest you light a candle, and blow out your thoughts.

Unstable as Christine Daaé may seem, she was a firm believer in her Angel of  
Music. After the loss of her father at twenty, most would agree she was  
recklessly vulnerable and in need of a father figure. Her lonesome self was  
literally crying out for guidance, and one cannot blame me for using that to  
my advantage.

She was a chorus girl, the type that did nothing exceptional but dance  
in the corpse de ballet and remained unnoticed for her own sake. Her beauty  
and voice were also overlooked by the idiot managers who occupied the Opera  
Populaire.

But a sparrow's voice could not be caged forever, and after the fateful  
night that I heard her sing, it became an absolute obsession to take her under  
my wing. Christine Daaé's voice was brilliant, but even brilliance could be  
improved upon. Her spirit lacked insurance, and I swore to myself I would move  
earth to provide it.

The first time I sang to her she had just threw a fit with Carlotta Giudicelli,  
the leading lady of the Opera Populaire. I did not hire that woman; it was a  
mutual agreement between the managers I did not bother to destroy. Christine  
was a sensitive being, and after three or four sour insults, he poor girl ran  
off to her dressing room in humiliation.

That was where I had found her, crying her precious eyes out due to her damaged pride.

I stood quietly behind the large dressing room mirror which took up  
more than two-thirds of the dressing room wall. The two-way mirror between us  
was especially designed to capture a few moments of the crew men's gossip of  
the Opera, but the room had been emptied for Christine's inhabitancy.

I was disappointed by the alteration at first, but later on it proved  
it's great convenience.

I beckoned her forward with my voice, and not to my amusement, she did  
as I asked. There was one strength and pure beauty inside of me that defeated  
all purposes of mortal sin—my voice. I had discovered this gift at a young  
age and used it as an instrument of power. With this voice I had easily and  
effortlessly manipulated Christine Daaé into believing I was the Angel of  
Music. And she had wanted this to lean against, finally an adobe to support  
her frail figure.

Her bedroom was made in a matter of days. I had a servant who'd done  
all the outside jobs for me since it was impossible to leave the house without  
stopping traffic in the streets. I had ordered gowns and dresses of the most  
expensive, rich kind, along with chemises, bodices, stockings, shoes,  
petticoats, anything a man would consider buying for his fiancée—I knew very  
well she was not my wife-to-be, but I often visited her bedroom before I had  
taken her in, just to breath in the violet scents of her perfume, mixed with  
the fragrance from the floral soaps and bath indulgences I had bought for  
her. She was always too modest to use it all, but she never forgot to thank me  
or gently brush her hand in gratitude against the cheek of my mask.

Then, I had taken it for granted—it wasn't as though I did not think of  
it; I memorized the tinge of warmth the second the tips of her fingertips  
touched my face, and I slept (though I did not do this often) with the growing  
dream of a deeper touch. She'd given me hope I never found since the day I  
was brought into this world. With a firm grip on that hope, I lived on the  
brink of happiness for three days.

Until she snatched it away.

It was a night after our regular singing lesson, and I'd brought her  
down to the catacombs that evening as I did the other three nights. Her  
expression had the same angelic brightness, and I sensed nothing dangerous from  
her soft mesmorized smile. She'd even touched me again, which I found  
delightfully normal by then, but still forbidden.

But Christine Daaé lost all purposeful defenses during her voice lessons, which  
is why I forced myself to be extremely cautious. I would hardly look into her  
eyes during the lessons in fear of losing my own self-restraint. When the  
music built up to the climax of the piece, I had allowed my own mind to be  
wrapped in the euphoria of glorious notes…and I did not notice her little hand  
as it reached out and lifted my mask from my face.

How does one define desperation? It is when the blood in your body  
freezes and paralyzes your mind into one terrifying thought, when all you have  
hoped would come true was a building pyramid that is destroyed into ruins,  
when an outstretched hand suddenly withdraws and one is left with nothing to  
hold onto and he is trapped in an endless fall.

I looked up at her for the very first time that night and she shrunk  
away from me instinctively, and she just stared at me in horror like she was  
staring at a complete stranger…the man who she'd seemingly trusted in these  
three days had been transformed into a monster, and he was scaring his little  
ingenue to death. A second later I had looked away, my body shaking and my  
face wrenching out frustrated tears and the buried fear of exposure. I was  
still crying when she shakily pushed my mask across the floor to me, repeating  
the first words she'd ever spoken to me since I saw her.

"I'm so sorry…."

We looked at each other for an unbearable span of time. At last, when  
I'd finally regained the dignity and human consciousness, I stood and left her  
alone by the pipe organ. It seemed strangely stupid to say anything to her  
after the bitter confrontation. I thought it right to blame her for allowing  
curiosity to take the upper hand. It was the one human trait that I despised  
with passion.

But the next night when I had beckoned her through her mirror, she did  
not refuse. When I played my music and drove her to the farthest horizons of  
ecstasy, she did not resist. I watched her half-closed eyes cloud with  
pleasure and the tempting, small raise and fall of her breasts to my song, but  
my voice was silent. Deep inside, I did not know how to take her return, as  
an invitation, an act of pity, or one of confusion. There were many things I  
wanted to ask her, but I concluded by asking nothing at all.


	2. 2

Everyday between the hours of sunrise and the birth of the moon, she  
lived above grounds and emerged herself in the luxurious rays of sunlight,  
happiness, and human contact. I did not value such things since I'd grown  
accustomed to survival without the essential needs of man. But she loved the  
blue sky and its peaceful soft clouds, and I made sure I would not deprive her  
of these simple joys of life by returning her to upper grounds before dawn.

Beyond the lake we lived as equals and in a manner of husband and  
wife. I never pushed her to do things she did not wish to do, and after the  
earlier incident, she seemed to have understood my need for that mask. But we  
tip-toed our way around our feelings like an uncleansed foot testing the  
surface of a pool of water—neither of us would speak of emotion when it came to  
our extraordinary associations.

I never pushed her to sing when she was exhausted after her dance  
rehearsals; on the contrary, I often suggested to her an early sleep. But  
she'd insist on continuing with the voice lesson, her blue eyes persuasive and  
pure, and I began to realize how much she needed my music. Without it she  
would be six feet above my home but completely miserable. Music quenched a  
thirst in her no man could ever satiate, of course, no man except for myself.

We had this in common; we claimed one sanctuary.

She would often beg me to tell her stories and produce poetry for her,  
and after I acceded to her request, she would fall asleep, kneeling besides me  
with her head leaning lightly against the side of my leg. That astonishing  
sensation! It was as if I would feel no greater pleasure from her voluntary  
touch, just to have the silky curls of her hair unbearably close to my skin,  
my eyes, my breath. I wanted this girl more than all the music in the world,  
and in the stolen moments of ecstasy, it would feel almost as though she were  
truly mine.

Alas, only I knew she was not.

I was not the only man who looked upon Christine Daaé with desire;  
there was the Vicomte de Chagny. He was a patron and son of a rich old man who  
showered his son with wealth and spoiled him to the bone. I never liked the  
boy since the first time I laid eyes upon him—he was indecently young, the  
same age as Christine, and unimaginably immature. There was nothing in common  
between the two except for their love for joyous things, and I did not see him  
as a hindering device when he first arrived at the Opera Populaire. But the  
boy and Christine had been childhood playmates, and soon after their first  
reunion, I took de Chagny's necessity under consideration. He was an  
aristocrat as well as an addition to the overflowing population of the other  
patricians, and his existence irritated me beyond creed.

I could have easily gotten rid of him if not for the risk of loosing  
her trust. Christine would have unquestionably suspected me of murder; only  
she knew I was capable of such deeds. My past was a mist of miserable  
despair, unforgotten and as cold as the depths of the winter snow. Questions  
never arose unless she proposed them, and even then I released very little  
information; deceiving was a simple and guiltless task, you see, Christine  
would have believed me if I told her the sun revolved around the moon. Neither  
of us minded each other's presence, but I always sensed there was something  
overpowering and timid inside of her. She was still living with the constant  
reminder of what lay behind that mask—that was why I gave her Elisabeth.

She completely porcelain, an Victorian doll and dressed in hand woven  
blue silk. Large blue eyes were forever awake and staring attentively at who  
holds it in her hands. She had only one oddity which was her lack of a  
mouth. She was far too beautiful to be left with her seller; thereupon I  
bought her, disregarding the odd looking mouth, or lack thereof.

Christine loved her, nonetheless, and I agreed to make Elisabeth sing.  
It wasn't a difficult task since ventriloquiy lay at the tip of my tongue for  
I had once performed as a ventriloquist in Vienna. Christine was delighted  
when music came out of the doll's invisible mouth. She'd clap her hands  
gaily, her sea-blue eyes twinkling and the sensual, pout of her lips spreading  
into a indulgent smile. When I was consumed with fatigue and thought it best  
not to sing, she would make me tea, and serve me, as a nurse serves a patient  
who is on crutches for life. And I suppose, in a way, I was.

There were times when I did not sleep, and we just spent a night awake,  
watching each other while the tension stirred and built to the point where  
she'd turn away, a rosy hue flushing her cheeks. Feelings—all these feelings  
she had to understand were too sudden and forceful, and I began to see that it  
was virginity, for both of us.

Virginity not just in the literal sense, but mentally…emotionally…we  
did not know lust. We did not feel sexuality, or we did not recognize it. It  
was like exposing a part of us that both she and I were vainly reluctant to  
share. In a way, we were still children, pushed back by the barrier of  
innocence, and too alarmed to cross the perimeter.


	3. 3

Life would have carried on in such an insignificant but disturbing  
fashion if I had wanted it to, but at length I waved Carlotta Giudicelli off  
the Parisian stage with a few threat notes to the management and put Christine  
in her rightful place. The first production of Faust, finally, consisted of a  
fine cast, and the performance was stunning. Her voice and my efforts  
rewarded her with fame and a glorious victory—it was what I would have had  
without this face, but I was content to sing through her.

She came to me freely that night, found her own way through the  
passages and endless corridors, and rowed across the lake to meet me at the  
other side. I was fairly surprised, perhaps touched or even delighted she did  
this willingly, but symbolism meant very little. I read her a fairy tale, the  
stories she loved so dearly, and she once more fell asleep with her head  
leaning against my side. It was bitter that evening, and I thought it best  
that I put her to bed right away. I picked her up in my arms, feeling the  
weight of her light supple body in my hands and her soft steady breathing  
against the skin of my neck; it felt like butterfly wings. I laid her  
carefully in her elaborate bed and blew out the long ivory candle at the  
bedstead. But I could not make myself leave the room.

Instead, I sat in a chair next to the bed and stared down at her with  
irrepressible longing. In the stark coldness of the room I still saw her  
clearly, allowing my eyes to travel to all places of her, memorizing, savoring  
the one thing I could not have.

She lay motionless, her hands lying limply at her sides and her legs  
covered by her long white gown. Her hair spread like a sea of silk around her  
pale face, peaceful, utterly angelic, and untouchable. A lock of her hair had  
fallen to the tip of the smooth mound of her breast, taunting and mocking me  
as I crumbled into heaps within. Why do you come back? I asked her in  
silence. Why do you remind me of what I will never conquer? If she knew I  
never accepted defeat, she was right not to answer.

Her eyelashes trembled, her lips parted as if to speak, and for a moment I  
thought I heard her call out my name… My own mouth opened to answer, and I  
closed them again, tortured by irresolution and momentary hesitation. She was  
dreaming, I knew, but they were the most useless things of all—dreams do not  
come true. Only nightmares. Only night. If I had answered….

Again she parted her lips but no sound came out, and she turned  
comfortably to her side, wrapping her hands around her arms, trying to avoid  
the cold. I removed my cloak and gently covered her with the long cashmere,  
and as I did so, my fingers brushed the tantalizingly soft material of her  
gown, then her hip and arm, and lastly her slender neck. I froze in place and  
dared not move my hands, for they had suddenly ached to linger a bit longer.  
I could have slipped beside her and have her sleep in my embrace for one  
night, but I turned away, quietly closing her bedroom door behind me.

I was disgusted with myself.

Rape…a violation of heart, of body, of dignity and the right to belong  
to oneself. A kind priest had told me this a long time ago, and I never  
thought of the word until now. It occurred to me how close I was to raping  
Christine Daaé, and the idea drove me mad with loathing. I have killed in my  
lifetime, but this concept seemed much more frightening and incorrigible; it  
was like the act of stabbing one's mother…the blood of guilt would always come  
back.

For hours I sat in my throne and delved in the bleak dungeon of my  
mind, recalling the unspeakable crimes I had committed towards humanity in my  
fading past. How I had killed for pleasure, under authority, stole beautiful  
things without a cry of conscience, and I had myself to remind me that I stole  
Christine too, a girl who not quite contrasted with a pretty piece of jewelry.

I thought of how she murmured my name in her sleep, her voice sweet and  
caressing, full of the innocence that begged to be corrupted. If I had leaned  
forward and breathed in the scent of her hair, to explore her darkest secrets,  
would she have awakened and screamed at the sight of my glowing mask? A part  
of me answered a persistent no, but another part, was coldly reluctant to  
answer at all.

I poured myself a cup of fine brandy and sipped lightly at the crimson  
tinted drink. Everything I saw reminded me of blood, it seemed, but it did  
not disturb me. Death was like a painting—it came in all different shades.  
And tonight, I was feeling particularly black.

I set down the wine and crossed the room, considering momentarily of  
playing the pipe organ stretched against the wall. I dismissed the idea at  
the thought of waking her—the last person I wanted to see now was her, in all  
her innocence, asking me to play more. And I was playing—just not music, but  
a game of cat and mouse with my delightful princess. I was very frightened to  
loose her, you see; who knows when she will let down her hair to me one day,  
and the plotting little Vicomte would cut it off when I am only half way up  
the golden tower. . . .

Resignedly, I slid into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. In  
the black ivory of my bed I dreamt of what was never truly meant to be. The  
name she called out was mine indeed, but in my dreams, I answered her without  
conscience, and she would come to me without fear.

We crossed the lake, and I took her back to her dressing room the  
following morning. Before we parted I told her she was not required to come to  
me for the next three weeks. It was best for me to keep my distance from her  
for a period of time since the only solution to her unbearable presence was to  
not have her be there at all.

I told her this ambiguously, and the hurt in her eyes broke my heart.

"Have I done something wrong?" She asked brokenly, "Are you angry with me?"

"No, my dear Christine," I said with forced indifference. "Regrettably, there  
will be a visitor who I must care to meet alone…."

She looked up at me with such intense accusation, I was sure she was about to  
cry.

"You've found somebody else, haven't you?" She whispered sadly and  
resolutely. Her lower lip trembled instinctively, "You've found someone worthy  
enough…."

For a moment I just stared at her in my dumbstruck surprise. I wanted  
to laugh at her absurd conclusion and muse at the incredible insolence of that  
assertion. Did she actually think there would be another like her whose voice  
would moved me to tears? Was she so insecure and naive, that she would  
believe there is someone left in the world who would not cower away from my  
face? Perhaps my little ingenue was more senseless than I'd thought.

My left hand gently caressed the air of her delicate cheek as I lowered  
my mouth to the tip of her ear and felt the heat around her shiver under my  
breath.

"You torment yourself, Christine," I whispered softly in a voice that  
made the hair on her spine stand on end.

I left her there, in her confusion and uncertainty, and I smiled  
despite the thundering drums of my excited heart.

By their own accord, the walls she'd built around herself had begun to  
fall apart.


	4. 4

Little did I know that she was to betray me so unremorsefully! Ironically, if the idiot managers had not delivered my salary in a crudely wrapped gossip paper, I would have never been made aware of such a startling rumor.

The _Epoque_ read,

"The latest news in the Faubourg is that there is a promise of marriage between Mlle. Christine Daaé, the opera-singer, and M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny."

My immediate reaction was to kill him right away to avoid all future rude awakenings, but after a second of consideration, I began to see that perhaps such an impulsive act would cost me more than I could afford. If I killed him, it would have to be on premises away from the Opera House to avoid a search of my catacombs (such drama would bring productions to a standstill), but I had little interest in killing him in a place that I was unfamiliar with. Suppose I needed to dispose of the body in an unsuitable place, and if he'd tried to run, I preferred to avoid making a mess..

But I was unconsciously avoiding the descent of the problem—Christine. I had underestimated her ability to deceive. It infuriated me to think that she had used this time of distance between her and me to invigorate her affair with the Vicomte, but what enraged me perhaps even more was that if it were not for this sudden coincidence, I could be discovering her "engagement" after the wedding!

I dipped a rose in charcoal and folded the article over it. That night, while she rehearsed, I visited her chamber and laid the message on her bed. I waited until she returned to discover the curious item on her pillow. Then as her complexion paled with realization that her secret had been unveiled, I began to laugh with sweet unbearable satisfaction.

She jumped at the sound of my voice, dropping the paper from her hands and kneeling instinctively in front of the mirror from where she knew I was watching. At that moment she had all the composure of a guilty vixen preparing to be tried. She hung her head shamefully, her hands hanging from her sides in trembling dread of what I might say next.

Strangely, as she knelt in anticipation of the downpour of my rage, I was inclined to say nothing at all.

I denied her the privilege of hearing my voice.

She sat on her heels for a very long time, with her head hanging and eyes unable to meet the surface of the cold glass. Finally as she reached for the mirror she lifted her head slightly and relinquished my name.

What an agony it was to hear it from her lips! And as she began to cry and cling onto the mirror with both her small hands, I withdrew a step back from the glass in terrible anguish. It was unbearable being this close to her, despite the pane of glass which separated us. Even in my bitterness I could not fight the urge to reach forward and scoop her into my arms in forgiveness. She began to cry that she had been weak, and that I was still her Angel of Music, and though this flattered me, it did nothing to ease my anger. I began retreating into the darkness that seemed to allow me to breathe with each backwards step I took.

"Erik! Please…!" Her voice was excruciating.

She pressed her cheek against the mirror and wept. "I was lost…forgive me."

I wanted to believe her, I really did…but she had lied. And I could not stand to be lied too. Nor could I tolerate another deception. Christine Daaé needed to be punished, and I would give her silence.

Turning from her weeping figure, I disappeared into the darkness. If she wanted the Angel of Music, she would have to find him on her own.


	5. 5

The trap had been easily set for my little ingénue. As I unhitched the boat, I left the yellow lantern upon the dock, equipped it with a set of matches so that she would be able to light it when she came. I had no doubt that Christine would come—it was only a matter of when that bereaved me; the later she arrived, the longer time she would have to occupy with the boy—and the more I tried to exorcise the image of their young entwining limbs from the chasm of my mind, the more vivid the vision became: Christine, lying timidly waiting in her wedding bed as the young lad nervously adjusts his cuffs in the hallway before inhaling a breath of barely contained excitement as he reaches to unlock the door to beauty I shall never know.

My heart began pounding irrationally as my strokes of the ore quickened with each insufferable image. How dare he! Such common right, such _allowed_ intrusion! What privileges naturally bestowed upon such a person with comely features: the ability to touch and receive such physical satisfaction without any exertion…such simple things placed in his birthright that I must fight, sing, and seduce to attain. Subsequently, my possession over Christine must mystify him terribly—for how could a boy of such pitiable simplicity understand the spells that bound her and me together?

When I reached the lair, I moved reflexively onto the manuscript of Don Juan Triumphant. I had been working on this opera for some time now and the notes had flowed out of my hands each succeeding day with demonic accuracy to my emotions. I could live my sick fantasies through the powers of musical invention—Don Juan would never abandon me or deceive me with its promises of loyalty…music was as devoted to my heart as I was to her spirit. It lifted me up beyond the binds of brutal reality into a kingdom of unmatched magnificence. I can hear her exquisite voice crescendo without abandon to the highest note of surrender…It was in this extreme empire where I floated in an ageless state of peace. And for fear of losing such perfection, I did not stop playing until my hands began to bleed …I dared not.

Christine came to me a day later when I noticed the flickering light from across the lake. She must have been shivering terribly from the cold because the lantern had gone out a few times before she finally lit it again with success and placed it steadily on the ground. I could hear her remarkable chattering as she called for me in the darkness. As I rowed towards her in the boat I could see that she was very cold indeed, for the tip of her nose was turning blue and she seemed to be numbed insensible to the tips of her toes. She could not see me very well in the dim light, but she could hear me, and I as drew closer to her, she unclasped her trembling hands and reached into the darkness.

"Erik?...Are you there?"

As she exhaled a breath of warm air I could feel the cloud of heat caressing my cheek. Then as the boat became visible she suddenly stepped backwards in alarm. Perhaps she hadn't expected me to arrive so soon, or perhaps my appearance startled her—as it always had in the past, but she began to stammer like quite an adorable fool.

"E-E-E-ri-k…How di-i-d you co-m-m-e so f-f-a-st!"

I stood at the end of the lake unmoving so that she could not see the ache in my body in the light. The desire to shroud her in my embrace was beginning to choke me, so thus I stood tensely, waiting for her to make a move, for my nerves could not allow my legs to take a step closer.

She could not move then, I realized; it seemed that she had been literally frozen in place provided with nothing but the protection of a flimsy cotton shawl. And as her small body began to sway lightly with the dim shadow of the light, I removed my cloak and advanced toward her. She fell lightly forward as I wrapped her in the cashmere and lifted her easily into my arms. Her head fell against my chest as she exhaled with a shudder in her frigid daze. Then suddenly, and it took me by complete surprise, she threw her arms around my neck and clasped onto me tightly with a strength I did not know she possessed.

It was then that I noticed the gaudy bauble of a ring that lay between the V of her breast next to the crucifix that her father had given her. I knew immediately that it was a gift from the Vicomte and it was meant to dangle from her beautiful neck in an existence unbeknownst to me.

I placed her gently unto the boat and bent over her, looking down into her exquisite face, tracing the curve of her jaw with my burning eyes until I reached that jewel again. With fire seething through my fingers I reached for the ring and pulled it violently from her neck. Her lips released a baffled gasp and her large eyes flew open as her hands flew around her neck. Her gaze darted from my eyes to the necklace in guilty bewilderment and as she reached a hand towards my mask I stood coldly and turned from her deceitful arm.

"_Don't_."

I pocketed the ring and picked up the ores and began to row with my back towards her. The thing seemed to be burning right threw the material of my pocket into my flesh, boiling my blood with such heated hatred that I began to feel physical pain as I rowed, unaware of her shrinking figure in the boat with me, unaware that I had reached the shore until I heard the loud _bang!_ of the tip of the boat smashing into the dock. I did not bother to tie the rope as I grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the boat, throwing her on the ground with a snarl of complete contempt.

"_Animal_!"

She began to cry wretchedly as I stood over her, looming over her frail form like an angel of doom, drawing her reluctant soul into my black wrath.

"What did I tell you about disobedience? Oh, you miserable child! Do you really think I'm a fool who will never uncover your lies and deceit?" I growled in rage, "well I've proven you wrong haven't I…No need to play very much of a detective to discover your poorly concealed little secret. Tell me about the proposal, Christine. Did he get down on one knee and kiss your precious little hand before he slipped it onto your finger? Or was it dramatically set upon a Shakespearean stage with you atop a balcony made of lilies and damsels? What a damsel, you certainly are, fainting in my arms at a whim and pleading for my forgiveness while upon your heart lies the very article of betrayal that will kill me… You've outdone yourself this time, my dear—you've finally mastered the makings of a perfect _whore_!"

I dragged her dully onto her feet like she was a marionette, and pulled her into the bedroom with me, throwing her onto the bed as she sobbed softly. Tearing the cloak from her shoulders, I pinned her against the mattress and pressed my face into her neck, whispering raspily into her ear.

"Show me what you've learned Christine…Let me be your pupil for once!"

I pressed my lips into her cheek, and then savagely down her jawline into the soft flesh of her neck. She released sobs which began transforming into sounds of abashed pleasure, and reaching for my head she pressed my face into her chest as I kissed her with the raging hunger that was never meant to be shared.

Suddenly all I could see was the remnants left of a shattered girl—a swan that had been blackened by the gargoyle who ravaged her. Her cold body was now burning hot in my arms, she was no longer trembling from coldness but fearful excitement, but the restraint in her voice forced me to stop.

I didn't want her this way.

I pulled away from her, heaving heavily from pleasure and disgust. This was not the way it was supposed to happen! I didn't want to press her body into the layers of silk and impose my mouth upon her raising chest. I didn't want to hear her whimper in soft resigned obedience as I violated her trust and body with all the indecency of a immoral fiend…It was all wrong—this was all wrong!

With an anguished cry I pushed myself off of the bed. She lay in a state of shock, blankly staring up at me in sorrow, grief, and bewilderment…I retreated to the other side of the room, my hands clenched tightly in fists that could not release.

"I don't want you…" I cried in pained torment. "I'm sorry."

Then leaving the room and closing the door firmly behind me, I heard her small hands securing the bolts.


	6. 6

I awoke from a nightmare—It was the same one that haunted me every time I closed my eyes and foolishly sought solace in sleep. I dreamt that I was in a dark room with no doors but I could hear her voice echoing from all directions of the walls, repeating the same lines from Faust that had first drawn her to me:

_Oh how strange!_

_I feel without alarm_

_With its melody enwind me_

_And all my heart subdue…._

But her voice begins to fade, and the sudden premonition dawns on me that I was meant to be left like this…alone, in the dark, without her voice, without my music. And I feel for the poison within my breast pocket before drinking it wholly in the final morbid crescendo of silence. But I did not die, and as I waited in stone cold indifference for that moment to come, it dawned on me that perhaps I would not be that lucky…And I begin to cry.

When I awoke, my body was very cold, colder than it normally would be, and as I began to realize it was just a dream, an eerie calm descended upon me. I went about making her breakfast thinking of the implications of its meaning. Was it prophetical or just proof that I was perfectly incapable of producing a happy dream? Perhaps last night's occurrence exhausted me and I had better rest a bit more before I delivered her breakfast. Or perhaps I could invite her to join me and make amends to yesterday's blunder. I shall assure her it will never happen again, and I intend on making up for it by taking her to la Rue…where she will find people and nature that shall suit her tastes and please her more than what has been provided to her down here.

I could not see how she could refuse…

As I approached her door, my heart began to tighten and choke beneath my dress shirt. I adjusted the cloak around me, spreading the sides like the wings of a bat before knocking on her door with a gentle hand. These hands seemed much less murderous than they were last evening.

There was no answer. I knocked again and when she did not reply, I began reaching for the key in my pocket before deciding to leave her be. Perhaps she did not wish to see me and was counting on an open door as a chance for another disastrous union. Very well, I thought, as I simply told her that if she was hungry there was toast and tea prepared for her in the kitchen, and that if any time she felt ready, she should come out and get it…I would not be there to watch her if she did not wish me to be.

Turning from her door, I retreated to my room and shut the door behind me in resigned dignity. I was physically exhausted, and hadn't been able to sleep in days…When I do I awoke from nightmares. As I lay upon my bed and slowly closed my eyes to what promised to be a true ounce of slumber, a knock on my door woke me without any hope of finding it.

"I-I'm sorry, to disturb you—" Came her timid voice, "But I can't seem to find the tea stirrer for the honey…Co-u-ld you perhaps tell me where it is?"

I looked over to the table set next to my bed where I had placed my last cup of tea, and there was the stirrer, as if by some ironic chance, sitting besides the jar of jasmine tea leafs.

"It's here, my dear."

She opened the door slightly, as if afraid she would see something and be frightened away, and then when I beckoned her to come forward, she walked into the room shyly and knelt at my feet.

I gestured towards the table where the stirrer had been left, and she followed the movement of my fingers as if entranced by the very action of its unfurling. Slowly, she got up and picked up the stirrer in her small hands, her head bowed in civil obedience and embarrassed shame as she walked towards the door, her eyes tearing again as I watched her from my bed. Suddenly she stops just as she's about to shut the door behind her, and turns to be desperately.

"I'm sorry…for everything that I've done to make you angry," she said gently, "I never meant to hurt you with the ring but Raoul insisted—"

I motioned for her to hush by placing a finger lightly on my lips.

"There's no need to talk about that now," I said tenderly, for at times like these I do forget that she is just a child who does not know the consequences of her inconsiderate deeds. "There will be better times to discuss such things. Go have breakfast."

She looked at me and smiled quaintly, welcoming me with her large blue eyes, "Would you join me, Erik? For breakfast, please? It would make me so happy…"

I gazed at her beautiful smile, and stood, gesturing for her to go first. "If it makes you happy, my dear, I'd be delighted to."


	7. 7

That night she could barely contain her excitement when I told her we were going on a carriage ride through La Rue. She had given me look of quiet disbelief, which slightly irritated me. Was it so inconceivable that I was capable of enjoying such a simple leisure? I suppose all this smoke and mirror interaction had convinced her I was more of reclusive obsessor than a man who was sociable with nature. Well I would have to prove her wrong tonight.

When we arrived at the gate, Jules was waiting obediently in the carriage—but before I gave him the order, he began to drive, almost too hastily I noted. Christine did not seem to notice, as she was fascinated by the streetlights outside of the Opera Garnier, putting her hand out into the night and letting the air slip between her fingers.

"How delightful!" She whispered, a smile spreading across her lips. Still distracted by the speed with which we sped off, I turned my gaze back to her delicate features softening in the blue moonlight.

"Yes, it's quite beautiful…"

She looked up at me and blushed—perhaps my tone had given me away. "How often do you come here, Erik?"

I pulled the curtain back from the window with a gloved hand and squinted at the glowing trees that could not catch up with us in the night. "Once in a while, when the occasional need for fresh air calls for it…."

"Do you always come alone, then?"

I shot her a look of hurt surprise. "Well, I'm afraid I don't have much of a choice, do I, my dear?"

"Oh Erik—"

"Besides I'm not particularly fond of carriages; they're far too enclosed inside. Very much like a cage!"

I threw the curtain back over the window and sat into the darkness, my hands clenching my knees in barely contained irritation. She may not have intentionally meant to mock me but I suddenly could not push the oppressive feeling of a _cage_ out of my mind; I was being choked by a question that seemed to squeeze my heart into a tiny unyielding fist.

"Erik!"

I felt her small hand on my shoulder, then on my arm, my chest, where I was sure my heart was beating thunderously wild. She began to shake me by the shoulders as I gasped for air, and then proceeded to beat her small fist on my back as if it would loosen the iron knot in my chest. I had hoped that she would never witness an attack like this herself; sadly my calculations of when they would occur was greatly misinterpreted, and now as she clung onto me crying and shaking me frantically, I began to see the horror brimming in her eyes. I truly believed that if I were to die at that very moment, she would go completely mad.

"_Christine!_ Stop this at once," I commanded as I pulled her hands from my back and tried to redeem my composure, "There's no need for hysterics…"

She looked at me in such dumbfound terror that I found it hard to match her gaze.

"What _happened_…?"

"Nonsense," I replied curtly, "bad memories, I suppose. They replay themselves in my mind once in a while…You needn't be afraid."

"Are you ill?" Her eyes were flooded with tears now. She gripped onto the satin brim of my cloak tightly as her voice grew quieter, "_Will you die_?"

I laughed at her ridiculous honesty. "Death is inevitable, my dear. We will all have that fateful meeting with Her one day, but I'm afraid I will not be seeing Her any time in the near future, if that's what you mean." I felt a spasm of sadness as I said those last words. Perhaps I was telling a lie, but at least it was for her good that I kept things simple, without any more pain.

"Oh please," she cried, throwing her arms around me like a desperate child clinging onto the alabaster that would save her life from the torrents that pulled her towards a relentless dark tide, "promise me you'll stay with me for as long as possible...please, promise me!"

Her hands felt like feathers against my neck, and as I prayed that the indents of her fingertips would sustain their sensation in my skin forever, I ran a gloved hand through her gossamer hair. She smelled like the jasmine leaves that I had given her this morning. Then, as she lifted her teary face and tilted her chin towards my mouth, I felt all the powers of self-possession leave her spirit…

Suddenly something from behind collided into the carriage with a force that threw Christine onto the floor in alarm. The brougham that sped closely behind us was driven by non other than the Vicomte de Chagny himself, his loose blond hair flying wildly behind him as he let out a growl of anguish when he saw me peer out. So this was why Jules had sped off so hastily; he must have suspected we were being followed all along! What poor miserable aim he had—he shot the carriage several times, succeeding only in scrapping the side of a wheel on one side. At least, I had to admired the courage that boy possessed to come so far as to initiate such a brassy confrontation! Even a brave man would rethink his plan before following a ghost's carriage into the night.

"To the woods de Germont!" I snapped, "Quickly!"

The carriage veered off from the clear road where in a jolt. It was a rocky downhill slope at first, but soon it was smooth again, as we sped through the shortcut in the woods to the back of the Opera Populaire, the Vicomte was long lost in a maze behind us.

I did not look at Christine, nor did she look at me. Where as the conflict of emotions from what would have been a tender moment kept my eyes averted from her, shame and reality kept hers from mine. What a pity it was that our evening had to be cut short by the abandoned lover who was all too determined to regain his childhood friend. Now it will be off to the music lessons that await her in my darkest domain…she will not be able to see sunlight for another day. All because that stupid boy wanted to kill me! If she had not been there, I unquestionably would have confronted his desire to duel. It would have been quick. I wouldn't have needed much more of a weapon than a lasso and a good grip. But how poorly timed his intrusion was indeed…

I helped her off the carriage in detached calm and unlocked the gates as she followed down into the labyrinth. My hand reached into my pocket where the traitorous ring rested, and handed it to her in burning disgust.

"Return this to your lover by messenger—" I snapped suddenly, "but if you attempt to see him again, Christine, do not ask how I will reward your treason."

As she bowed her head dutifully, she acceded to my request.


	8. 8

"Appearance is all illusion. And this moment of perception of Beauty is what matters most. But this moment…goes away. It wears off." –T. Ford.

Trust. Such an simple word to say, yet believing in it was the most unfaithful act of all. Like a sip of red wine it tasted bitter on my tongue, intoxicating and dangerous to my sensibility—another sip and I just might see what I want to see, believe what is gone is mine.

_She belongs to me._

I wanted her so badly that I had become completely possessed by the desire to make her mine, all of her—to the very last pulsing vein in her heart—I wanted Christine Daae like no man would ever want his wife, to see her receptive arms welcome his embrace and beckon him into her bed, to wake up with her head next to mine, undisturbed, serene, and satisfied.

Oh Christine, my foolish love, you do not understand. Such power, to make you a happy woman, lies within these murderous hands…For you see; they too, can be beautiful like you if their master commands them to. They will beckon you from your sanctuary of holy reason into the heaven that you've secretly dreamt…Such heaven could be yours, Christine—and the only vice that keeps you from owning it, is your stubborn will. These hands will not give if they are not claimed.

Drumming my fingers in a thousand beats across the ivory and ebony keys, I lifted her up with my music as she sang, joining her in the climax that wrenched our souls with our voices and ripped our hearts apart. It is at these moments that I am grateful to God for his unspeakable mistake, for without this face I would have never heard you sing, and in consequence, I would have never lived for a single day.

I love you, Christine.

I love you so much that I would cut off these hands to make you happy, leave this kingdom that I so familiarly clung to and go to the end of the world with you.

Yet how is it that you have fooled me and taken my soul while wearing another's gift upon your breast? How is it that your young man and I are so different, yet so alike—willing to kill to claim you as our own? I had long begun to doubt your innocence since the first time I stared into your clandestine face…I know that beneath the child-like exterior lies a smoldering creature of fire, burning to break the shell that binds her. I know that since your first sample of darkness you've yearned to taste it again—torn between the light that raised you and the night that brings you to life. I recognize the guilt in your eyes. It is not the boy…but the woman who speaks silently that gives you away.

I brought her back to her room—leaving her without a word but my voice in her mind, singing her the sweet lullaby that spun tales of the Angel of Music. The Angel who she _wants_ to believe. I held her in that trance until she fell asleep in her bed, and I descended down once more into the dungeons that awaited me.

Sleep well, my Angel...for soon you will have to prove your faith to me, and I will show you how.


	9. 9

I sent her a note. Sampling the handwriting from a letter of the patron, I wrote:

_Meet me tonight during the Intermission–Atop Apollo's Lyre. I can save you._

_--Raoul_

If she dares to appear upon the roof tonight, I shall have all the incentive I need to kill them both.

That night, I settled behind the guise of Apollo's bronze wings and waited patiently in the dark. In my right hand, I held simple gold ring, one that I had chosen to represent our engagement for it was definitively the reverse design of the boy's gift. A simplicity that would reflect the complex, and in the other hand, a dagger infused with the venom to plunge into both of their hearts. It would be merciful of me to end their miserable "happily ever after" so quickly, if she knew I never had a "once upon a time"…

Then as I listened with anticipation pulsating in my heart, I began to hear footsteps upon the roof. With detached calm I peered above the wing and watched as she lead the Vicomte behind her with all the nervous tension of an escaped prisoner. They stopped short of a few feet away from my position, and he lifted her up into his arms and clung onto her small frame with what seemed to be all his might, crying her name in the fashion of a depraved child.

"Why, why did you return the ring to me? Does it mean you do not love me?"

"No Raoul," her voice replied, "I can't explain—please forgive me."

"Then you do love me?—Please Christine, I must know. I cannot go on like this, believing forever when you cannot last a day!"

"I care for you both, Raoul."

"But you love _me_, don't you?" He grasped her hands and kissed them fervently. "Tell me that you do…I will die if I do not know."

She quieted him with her welcoming lips, kissing his cheek and then his mouth, sending him into a whirlwind of hope—

I reached for dagger prepped in my left hand, clenching onto the handle so tightly that the pressure of my grip turned my knuckles a sheer white. So this is it—this is how you've chosen to repay me for all the blood I've shed for you, the music I've written for you, the songs I've sang to you—this is how you obey your Master at your free will! Without conscience and devoid of shame!

_How civil of you, Christine—"for us both!" Well regrettably, my dear, there can only be one winner—and I shall, as Don Juan, reign triumphant over you both!_

The ring betrayed my presence with it's gently clank as it fell to the side of my foot.

Her eyes flew open as she kissed him, but they did not cringe in terror. Rather, they seemed to smile in acknowledgement that she'd known me to be watching her there all along, And as she released him from her kiss, she held his head with her hands so that his face would be adverted from mine.

Parting her lips, she whispered in precious silence: _I'm here for you._

I retired into the darkness, an opulent smile creeping up the corners of my mouth. She had been mine all along, and nothing, neither light nor stature could seduce her—as the boy clung onto her in such destroyed and noble pain, I basked in the flight of her tortured innocence.

How easy it would have been to just put an end to this all, rather than tease her with my manifestations, for I will always be looming above her, filled with a love that brinked on malevolence. How easy it would have been indeed, to snatch and protect her under my wing forever.

But that was all irreverent now. She was already mine and there was no need for melodrama.


	10. 10

Looking back it seemed far too presumptuous of me to assume things would end so languidly. She loved me. I had won. Finally, there was nothing, as there never should have been, keeping us apart. I was a fool to not realize that at the very moment my heart settled in ease, something inexplicable would unfold...Nothing prepared me, not even the faintest of premonitions, for what would happen next.

An hour before the curtain rose for _The Magic Flute_, I was securing the lock at the gates when I felt a man's presence behind me. I spun around immediately and caught his head in the lasso under my cloak, but as I stared into the startled gaze of those unmistakably curious eyes, I released him and let him stumble backwards a few feet from me.

"I thought you were dead."

"And I never believed for a moment that you were either, Erik," the familiar voice said in flawed French, still with the same compassionate care that irritated and comforted me twenty years ago.

I examined Nadir Khan in the darkness. He looked as though he'd dropped twenty pounds. The creases at the corners of his mouth were now visible, his eyes, a bit more weak in their approach, had crows feet embedded deeply in their corners. Suddenly a wave of guilt overcame me as I realized that his forced progression of age was most likely due to my disservice.

"You've aged, daroga," I said curtly, allowing the sarcasm to veil my unease.

The dark man shrugged his shoulders, "Ah well—you seem taller, my friend. Some things never change."

He was smiling and I found it consequently upsetting. Warmth and morality; these qualities of the chief of police will never cease to infect me with their ethical consciousness—and this was a very bad time for their arrival indeed.

I replaced the lasso into my cloak. "How did you find me?"

"I've been living in Paris for quite a while—but I've heard the rumors about the ghost, Garnier's mysterious fellow architect who he refused to make a decision on a design without," he said rather proudly of his findings, "I didn't want to believe it at first, but it had the markings of your work all over it—the Turkish bath illusion of the Opera Populaire, and the quaint subdued impression of the exterior—But I could not believe it...I had to see for myself. And here you are, my friend," he said with a shake of his head, "The Phantom of the Opera."

I listened to his little revelation grimly and checked the time impatiently. "Yes, very good, detective. Then perhaps you are staying for tonight's performance?"

"No," he replied lightly, "I came to give you something you might find valuable."

I lifted an arched brow in curiosity. "Oh?"

From his breast pocket he produced a slip of paper and held it out to me with a quivering hand. I looked down at the harmless sheet folded into four sections in his palm, and studied Nadir's expression. When I could not decide whether it was one of excitement or fear, I took the slip from him and opened it slowly.

The lantern in my hand fell onto the ground and burst into flames of blackness. I threw the paper aside and advanced towards the Persian with menacing speed. Grabbing him by the white collar of his shirt I slammed him up against the gate in savage rage.

"What is this?" I growled into his unyielding face, "What are you doing?"

He pried his fingers around my fists but I was completely incapable of releasing him. Instead, I pressed him harder into the iron bars as his clenched his teeth in pain.

"Erik—Please!"

I pressed him harder into the metal, and whispered in barely contained madness—"Tell me what you know Nadir, or friendship or not, I swear I will kill you without remorse."

"He is your brother!"

I searched his eyes for a hint of doubt, and when I found none, I dropped him onto his feet and turned from him so he could not see the shaking of my shoulders. The pain dawned on me like morphine, shooting up my left arm, spreading through my veins into my chest and my brain. Except there was no euphoria at the end of the tunnel this time.

Just illogical, unbearable, insurmountable cruelty...

"I don't understand," Daroga said with bewildered terror. "God has given you a brother, is that so maddening?"

I glanced down upon the letter laying face up at me and ran my eyes over the lines that betrayed me with each rolling syllable.

This is what you've always wanted, wasn't it Madeleine? Some normalcy in your life after the state of terror I left you in when I was only nine...How smart of you to send your ordinary child to Paris, not to sing but to admire the girls on stage who do! What horror you must feel if you knew your sons would be fighting for the love of one woman....

Well I forgive you, Madeleine, because you are dead. There's no point for me to hold you to your sins now. I shall leave that to God and his _infinite_ wisdom.

But it does alarm you in your eternal sleep that your imperfect creation has prevailed over this bitter war between light and darkness, doesn't it? Why you said so yourself, that darkness was good for me, don't you remember? It protects me now like the blanket of cashmere around my shoulders ….

Holding my arms together in unbearable ache, I turned back towards Nadir. "God is a sadist, but it is not he who mocks me."

Daroga was silent. A moment later I heard him gather himself together and felt his hand lightly fall on my shoulder. He sighed softly and perhaps shook his head. "You should be grateful for what little family you have left."

There was nothing left in me but the thralls of my cold mechanical laugher that echoed throughout my body in currents of desperation. As I left him alone in the dark, my laughter followed me with the irony of my twisted fate and my new miserable discovery.


	11. 11

Note to Angelic Lawyer who had said that Erik's character progressed with each chapter – I believe it's because I wrote the first four chapters of Temperance when I was 16 years old, and the rest now, 5 years later – I do wish the contrast wasn't so stark, but I can't help writing him darker and darker :-D Thank you guys for all the reviews – they really make my day!

Warning about this chapter: It's a bit R-rated

* * *

I met Christine at the gates of La Rue Scribe and beckoned her to follow me without conversation. She did as she was told, but I caught a second of the puzzled disappointment in her eyes as I did not extend my hand to her or offer her my cloak, as I have always done. There was no time for that, Christine—there were more serious concerns tonight.

My mind was extremely troubled by the presence of my pestilent friend. How could I have missed Nadir all this time? Sitting in the twelfth row of the orchestra with his opera glasses glued to his eyes, he had raised his eyes up warily to the ceiling several times during the performance, as if he'd expected me to be swinging from the crystal chandelier! I watched him as his gaze wandered across the balcony and rest on my ambiguously dark box with a nervous squint.

There was a very likely chance that daroga had come to find the Vicomte and let him in on the startling blood-tie, and perhaps even try to reunite us.

"_You're always looking Nadir…what a pity you never quite manage to see!"__1_

Christine must have felt my tense concentration because I flinched as she squeezed my arm.

She gasped in pain as I sharply twisted the hand that touched me and spun around to face it's owner, but as I recognized the soft curves of her features, I released her immediately and took a step back in surprise.

"Forgive me!" I said disconcertedly and reached for her hand to see if I'd done some serious harm to her tendons. She pulled back with an instinctively jolt of her arm and averted her eyes from me.

I studied her for a moment of resigned regret before continuing on towards the lake without a word. I had no interest in facing the feministic qualities of the hurt and accusation in her eyes tonight—if she did not comply, she would simply have to find her way back alone.

Minutes later I could hear her footsteps tapping behind me with the rhythm of her panting as she ran…

We reached the lair, and as she has always done in the past, she automatically walked next to the organ expecting a lesson. Instead I did not follow her and instructed her to sit down at the sofa. With quivering lower lip she, obeyed and sat with her head bowed, as if she'd expected an eminent reprimanding. I poured two glasses of red wine sunk into the chair beside her, studying her quiet hesitation as I offered her a drink. She shook her head shyly and shrunk into the cushion of the couch in unease.

Sighing, I motioned for her to accept it without apprehension. "You were flawless tonight…One should celebrate such a triumph."

Slowly she accepted the glass and brought it to her lips. She sipped the red liquid uncertainly, and looked up at me.

"It wouldn't be fair to say that the triumph was all mine, Master," She took another, more courageous sip of her wine. "I'm ashamed to take the adulation."

I made a gesture of indifference. "Nevermind who the praise goes to, I have little regard for public approval. I would rather obtain the veneration of you, my dear, than all of Paris."

She blushed as crimson as her drink and proceeded to drink quite rapidly until the glass was empty. I poured her another glass and sat back and watched with incredulous marvel at the speed with which she accepted the liquor into her mouth. She seemed almost eager to be calmed, and I did not refuse her the next two glasses as she finished them greedily. Slowly but surely her clenched hands began to relax and her eyes glazed over with the glassy veil of intoxication. As she extended the glass to me once more, I took it from her hand and set it aside. She dropped her arm limply and sank her head into the arm of the sofa, leisurely submerging her face into the scarlet velvet cushions. Gazing at me through her half-masked eyes and smiled.

"Erik?"

I sat languidly in my chair, mesmerized by her drunken beauty and taking in the parting and closing motion of her lips with my eyes with hungry unease. She adjusted her hair amongst the cushions so silky tendrils spread around her face in an ocean of waves. Then, slowly, her hand crept to her neck, messaging the muscle in her shoulder that made her release small sounds of pleasure.

"Erik?"

"Hush, I'm here."

I did not move. I dared not. Behind the mask my expression had already gone to one of complete loathing, twisted despite its powerlessness to retrain and tensed to every aching bone in my body.

What it is that the Khanum used to call me?

_Temperance_.

"_You can gore yourself in all the blood in my kingdom, Erik, but what a shame you must always keep away from the women! Yes that's what you are, my elusive Temperance!"_

What a sardonic name for me, I had thought. I could not have then what I could not have now, yet I could, for the first time, live up to the reputation of my name….

I felt the power leave my body as I took in breaths of air engulfed by her soft perfume. I tightly gripped onto the arms of my chair, my own arms shaking as if I was being whipped and dragged into a pit of ravenous lions—Still she turned her body towards me and widened the pleasurable little smile across her lips as she called out my name with distilled passion.

"Erik…come please. Tell me a story."

But my mind was at a sudden standstill—no folklore that I had ever heard remained in my memory. It was as if my extraordinary powers of recall had vanished without warning, leaving me with nothing but the sight of my clenched hands with their knuckles turning the ghastly white shade of my mask.

_Take her!_

I leapt from my chair and enclosed beneath my body like a bat resting it's wings over a possession it's forbidden to own. With unnerved savageness I began undoing the lace-up strings of her corset, and then plunging my lips into the soft flesh of her breasts, I felt the shackles on my shoulders burst with release. She tasted like soft, becoming eagerness on my tongue, and as I kissed her lips with greedy desire she returned them between sounds of unrecognizable happiness.

She did not refuse.

Her arms wrapped caressingly around my neck as we kissed with a fiery urge of two needy children, and as I saw the look of intoxication turn into one of pleased bewilderment, I knew without a morsel of doubt that Christine Daaé loved me. But something was terribly wrong. The guilt in her eyesdug like agluttonous blade deep into the centre of my heart…

_She had lied_….

1 Quote taken from Kay's Phantom


	12. 12

Greetings to you all! I hope you've had a Merry Christmas and look forward to the New Year! As you I know, the movie version of _ALW's Phantom of the Opera_ was released on Dec 22, and I have seen it 3 times sense. Despite my expected disappointment that they've reproduced such a bastardized version of Erik, I found that it only encouraged me to recreate my own image of this fantastic creature in my mind. So here is the Erik that I love and adore – I thank you all or reading and reviewing! And loving Erik, of course! :-D

Christine Daae knelt between my knees with her head bowed shamefully towards the ground, her body rocking back and forth with the suppressed terror of a prisoner prepped for execution. She swayed and muttered indiscernible words under her breath that sounded like words of penitent prayer. My hands crept from her face to the whitening flesh of her neck and settled into the curvaceous slope of her supple shoulders. I clasped onto them so tightly that she whimpered in pain, but she dared not look up and meet my eyes. She was afraid yes, that perhaps my gaze would burn her alive.

I let myself sink down to the ground so that she would be compelled to stare into my face – with a violent squeeze I gripped and pulled her face towards mine, and she finally looked at me with half-masked eyes that welled with emotion. Her tears slipped down her cheek and onto my forceful hands.

"Erik—Please…"

My grip around her chin tightened at the sound of that treacherous voice which I no longer entrusted my faith.

"It would be wise to be very silent now, Christine," I said with impermeable coldness. Without warning I slipped my left hand down to her small corseted waist and ripped at the last few laces which held it in tact. I think she might have gasped under my threatening grasp. "Oh no, my dear – you mustn't act so surprised!" I pulled her towards me with savage violence. "It hardly seems genuine when you can no longer confide in me your uncontaminated virginity!"

She let out an anguished cry of terror as I shook her like a ragged doll in my arms. But she did not deny it; her betrayal was like ink splattered all over her beguiling little face—that guilt that lack of denial which only drove me further into madness.

"Our little ménage upon the roof was not enough to convince that boy…He had to _lie_ with you to be assured your abysmal affair was _true love_, didn't he?"

I shook her more fiercely as she struggled in my arms. Her face had already become deathly pale, drained of all the rose-flush of her earlier intoxication. She was somberly aware of my menacing spirit now. As I clung onto her body she began to shake, in the convulsing, uncontrollable manner of someone who was suffering from seizure. I pressed my thumb into the crevice about her upper lip, and her shaking subsided. Pulling her hair back with one hand, my other swooped with strained tenderness around her wretched neck.

"That's better. How bizarrely stiff you seem now. You couldn't have possibly been this stiff with the Vicomte, could you? Perhaps you would like to demonstrate how you calmed your brave young suitor…." I pulled her hand towards my mask and forced her clumsy fingers to rip it from my face. Slowly I maneuvered her hand to fall against the thin layer of my ravaged flesh and down towards my neck, chest, stomach….

She did not struggle but her eyes widened at the sensation of each new undiscovered territory of flesh that she touched. Then as she extended her land lower, below the waist, I caught it repulsively and threw it from my body in revulsion.

"Come, stand up you little fool."

I dragged her to her feet, crushing her corset beneath my step as I lead her numbly into my bedroom with me. I positioned her limply by my bed and ordered her to undress. She did so without a word, removing her full skirt and undergarments with a stupid quivering hand until and at last as she stood naked before me engulfed by the frigidness of my unyielding gaze. I lifted a dejected hand and struck her icily across the cheek. The impact made a crisp, popping sound, immediately followed by the echoes of her quiet sobbing. Slowly, I removed my cloak and wrapped her body in the material, and I lifted her into my arms with one swift swoop and carried her towards the coffin that I regarded as my bed. I positioned her over the large black mouth of the silk-lined box and smiled stonily at her expressionless face.

"You will sleep here tonight."

The consciousness in her eyes returned as I dropped her vehemently into the casket. Upon realizing where she was, she screamed in dull horror and shot an outstretched arm to clutch at my sleeve.

"Erik, no!"

"Yes, my dear," I nodded with pitiless formality. I pulled away from her hand and stared down at her in remote frostiness. "Perhaps in here you might find it easier to reflect upon the consequences of your blasphemous crime. By the time I come to fetch you, I expect you to have an appropriate punishment in mind. Nothing in the sort of strangling or throwing yourself out the window, please—I don't have much tolerance for ill-considered torture."

Her eyes blinked several times as if she found it difficult to register my orders. Then at last as her hands crept upon the luxurious soft material of the elaborate funeral bed, she allowed the realization of doom to dawn on her.

"You mean – to leave me," she stuttered, "in your coffin…"

"Now _your_ coffin, my dear." I patted the side of the mahogany with a cordial hand. "I daresay this is the first time I've shared my bed with anyone, but it's proved less problematic than one would have anticipated, hasn't it, Christine?"

She withdrew her hand from the lush walls of the coffin and swallowed what seemed to be a growing lump in her small throat. "And if I can't think of an _appropriate_ punishment…?"

I issued a sigh of impatience and lifted the lid reflexively above her head.

"Then you shall join me in my improper burial and exist as the living dead."

Before she could open her mouth to speak I dropped her lid upon her with a dull thud. Turning the scorpion key that locked the casket, I left the room, letting the sound of her screams and her small fists beating against the lid grow into faint whispers behind me.


	13. 13

The second midnight, I sat alone in the living room with my hands slowly messaging the black ivory arms of my chair in slow circular motions of restlessness. At the fourteenth hour her screams had begun to decrescendo into to sporadic whimpers of defeat. By the twentieth hour, she fell silent.

I smiled wryly, examining the snake crested handle of the black whip that I retreated from the secret compartment of my throne. _That's better my dear. It's not wise to ruin your vocal palette with hopeless cries for help._ The engraved cobra twisted its lengthy emerald body around the grip in a conniving, merciless fashion. Its provocative grin taunting me with it's covert hissing as I stood and sent the long whip across the room, extinguishing the first flame that met it's bite.

Game sport.

I slid a finger down the leather, reminded of the terrible amusement it gave me in the Persian courts. I had nearly scared the Shah of Shahs out of his skin when I pounded the instrument around him to capture his ill-advised assassin. The Shadow of God couldn't catch his breath before muttering in flustered exasperation that I could have warned him before it caught the hired gun around his throat and sliced it quite succinctly at the Adam's apple. I daresay that day I proved myself too proficient an executioner to kept around.

I sliced the air with the instrument again, this time cracking the second black candle into two halves. I proceeded to kill each following stick of wax until darkness surrounded the pipe organ with emptied candelabras scattered in untidy piles around it.

Still, my ability to pick up the slightest shuffle in that casket destroyed the possibility to concentrate on any other form of self-indulgence. I beat the cobra against my glove hand irritatingly, considering the possibility of continuing this exercise of appeasement.

The snake fell short of hitting my palm again when I realized there was no longer a sound of movement. But a melody of faint familiarity rose from her room like a requiem of doom. It seeped through the door of my room like poison and poured mercilessly into my ears. I recognized it curiously to be from Rodolfo's verse in _Aida:_

_Then I, silent, ecstatic, listened to her words _

_as she, sounding like an angel, said "I love only you",  
so that paradise seemed to open to my soul!  
Sounding like an angel, she said "I love only you"._

_Ah! she betrayed me! She betrayed me!_

The Verdi score soared beyond the walls of my chambers, ringing in my head in seething clarity. Then changing the lyrics, she sang…

_Sounding like an angel, I said "I love only you"._

_Ah! I betrayed you! I betrayed you!_

I lifted my hands to cover my ears…It was too piercing—her voice! It rang like bells that could not be muffled—such incessant craving, precision, retribution, all warped in one long, deafening note…She sang like it was her dying prayer, drawing me into the wrath of her hateful revelation as I gripped tighter and tighter onto the raw instrument in my hand.

Dragging myself to the bedroom, I threw open the door and beat the whip several times against the lid of the coffin. The snapping of the wood in several place resulted in cracking echoes in the room.

"Silence!" I boomed in the darkness. I lashed at the coffin again with raging ferocity until my hands tired from the violent pounding. Slowly the singing transformed into distorted laughter, and as I leapt towards the casket and threw open its lid, wrapping the whip around her little throat in such atrocious madness, I found Christine Daaé smiling back at me.

Her hair clung in messy, wet, sweaty tendrils around her face. Her fingernails, engorged in blood, had been broken from scratching the insides of the lid so viciously. The tears in her eyes were still fresh; it seemed, even as she sang, she did not stop crying. I took in the sight of her disheveled insanity with a mix of horror and fascination as I slowly loosened the taut rope around her neck.

"Ah, what a lovely sight you are," I remarked, disguising my own apprehension with sarcasm. I wiped the tears from her cheek with an absent finger, pausing for a second before continuing to tame the wild hair around her face with my free hand.

"How do you expect to think of a penalty if you preoccupy yourself with bloody crying all night?"

She lay very still and compliantly as I dabbed at her forehead with the corners of the cloak. A smile rested on her face as peaceful as that of a sleeping child, but her eyes remain open, staring blankly at the ceiling. For a moment I had the slightest regret that perhaps I'd truly forced off the deep end.

"Well, my dear? Don't just stare at the wall like that; what shall be your punishment?"

She liked her lips and spoke very softly.

"Please, don't hurt him, Erik…My heart foreseeing your condemnation, in your arms I wish to die."

I slammed the lid back onto the coffin with a thud and crushed my fist into the splintered wood.

"You idiot!" I yelled, "Not another line from _Aida_ from you, do you hear? I don't want you to play another character to me from an Opera! Don't _lie_ to me, _poison_ me with your resignation Christine Daae, do you understand? _I don't wish to be amused_!"

Exasperated, I spread my hands across the lid of the coffin and tried to quiet down my heavy breathing by gripping onto the mahogany. I was really growing tired of this charade—perhaps I didn't want her at all. Perhaps I only wanted to find an excuse to keep her here to satisfy my perverse need for company, and I had never loved as much as I loved myself. Perhaps what bothered me more than her being with the Vicomte was her being with my brother, and that he had won everything in the end: my life, my mother, my wife…all with his singular face.

No, that wasn't it. I was not jealous of Raoul. He was young, unaware, unfortunate even for loving Christine as much as I did. But he was innocent, and I had nothing to hate in him.

Then it had to be her own undoing that I wanted so much to undo myself…I wanted to turn back the hands of time that could never be touched. There was no magic within my reach that could cast the spell on the reversal of time, and I was helpless now as I once was, trapped, in the prison of my mind.

"I will not kill him, Christine," I said to the coffin, "He's much more useful alive to me than you are…We have a lot in common you know."

A noise from inside the box.

"Yes, quite a lot in common, in fact," I spoke with meditated calm, "One can never predict when fate will deal him a deck a peculiar cards…Here, I have the Joker, you see." I tapped the coffin to make certain she was listening. "It seems that your precious Vicomte de Chagny and I are from one nest."

Another noise.

"Oh yes, that is exactly what I mean!" I laughed softly, amused at my own ability to humor the situation. Leaning closely into the coffin I hissed with predatory charm, "Upsetting isn't it, Christine? I daresay you've given yourself to my half-brother quite blindly."

A cough. A sniffle. Then nothing.

I began to delicately trace the splints with my finger. "I see…you must be sleeping. I suppose fatigue befits a night of screaming. But you must tell me what you think of this new turn of events, my dear. Tell me straightaway and I shall leave you alone."

I stepped back from the coffin, listening for her faint, anxious response.

A long desolate pause ensued.

Then, with shrill vivacity, a blood-curdling scream.


	14. 14

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock on the mantelpiece strikes twelve again—I suddenly remember Christine Daae might be severely dehydrated after forty-eight hours of confinement. But what is forty-eight hours compared to a lifetime? After all, if I planned to keep her with me forever, she should get used to such forms of imprisonment.

I lay in my mother's bed, thinking. There was no other place for me to sleep, you see. She had taken my coffin and therefore I must lie in hers. What unbearable bliss!

The bed smelt of perfume. The soap she used to cleanse her hair with filled the sheets with the aroma of lavender. Or was it honeysuckle?

I sighed and turned to my side, dismissively eyeing the empty space beside me. I wondered what curious feeling would arouse if I were to wake with her in my arms every morning. I imagine her eyes tearing with horror and slowly drying at the familiarity of my face. With a lingering hand, I pulled the coverlet over that empty, gaping spot and turned away from it. A woman had done so the day I was born, except her hand would yank the blanket just enough to her son's head in disgust.

_I remember that. I remember you, Madeleine._

I stood shakily, running a quaking hand through my hair. I must stop these pitiful sessions of recall! Fifty years and you still haven't hand enough loathing, have you? Memory serves me no purpose, just pain, revulsion, regret, and utter hate that clouds my bitter mind. Yes, I have to transpose such memories to the present now—Once I'm here, there's no going back.

The coffin.

I entered my room, taking care to make no sound so she would not know of my coming. Turning the scorpion key slowly, I lifted back the lid of the coffin and found Christine sound asleep, no longer crying or praying for helpShe must have fainted after her mind-piercing scream. I lifted her into my arms as her head fell back heavily to my side and carried her into the living room, setting her on the sofa as she sunk into the soft velvet. I left her there to sleep as I prepared her bath in her room. She had never used this before. The oils and scents that I had purchased for her remained untouched, collecting dust as they lined against the bathtub in colorful arrays of different shapes and sizes. My hand instinctively reached for the Lavender bath oil, and I carefully poured a precise amount in the rising water so that the fragrance rose lightly like mist to one's sense of smell.

I brought her into the lavish bathroom, removing my cloak from her shoulders and set her into the water, allowing the foam and bubbles to engulf her meek little body. She released a small sigh of contentment. Rolling up the sleeves of my dress shirt as to not get wet, I positioned her back against me as I gently massaged her neck. She sighed again, this time a bit more audible than the last, and I trailed my fingers up her neck, into her lush head of silky hair. Slowly, I began to message the soap into her hair, taking care as to not get any in her eyes. Her head was still heavy, though I noticed with quite conviction that she was now indeed conscious and aware of her surroundings. Cautiously, I reached into the water and withdrew her arm, gently cleansing it a plush sponge until I reached her swollen hands.

I retrieved some alcohol from the cabinets and dabbed them onto each individual finger. She whimpered as the sting shot through her hands. Yet she did not open her eyes. However she could not bear it when I began to cleanse the other hand and yelped in pain as the alcohol swab touched her fourth finger. As she tried to pull back her hand, I held onto it firmly.

"I'm afraid it'll be just a sting my dear," I said softly, without looking at her. "Calm yourself and it will be over soon."

She allowed me to finish.

I kept her hands upon the sides of the bathtub so they would not meet water. She sat very still as I rinsed the soap from her hair, not saying a word, nor lifted her head towards me. Her eyes were open now, but they looked distantly into the ripples of foam that now fathered around her shoulders.

I stood and held up a towel between us. "If you are too weak, then I shall have to lift you. But seeing that would make a terrible mess, I'd much rather you stand."

She stared into the water with less conviction and I sighed impatiently.

"If you're worried that I might take advantage of your state of undress, you can look for yourself. The mirror is to your right."

She turned towards the large pane of fogged glass that was the wall of the bathroom and quickly looked back into the water. I turned my gaze from her as she stood and barely touched her as she took the towel from my hands and wrapped it around her body.

"Are you finished?"

At the sound of her soft "yes," I turned back to her, leaning so very close to her that I can feel the heat rising from her skin. She swayed forward a little, but I held out my hands in a gesture of patience.

"Wait here."

I left her alone and returned in a few minutes with an ivory dress in my hands. It was new and fitted to her measurements, every detail intricately woven into its hem—After all these days, it'd hung unworn in her closet like an old ornament forgotten to be used. Perhaps now it would be time for her to change out of her old skin and put on a new…

"Put this on."

Her eyes marveled at the elegant gown. As she reached out a hand to feel the silk lining of the sleeves, she gasped at its softness. Looking up at me tentatively, she took the dress into her arms, holding it against her chest. I sighed, pleased at how quickly she'd accepted. Suddenly, she pulled the gown away from her as if coming to some dawning realization shook her head defiantly.

"I'm sorry, I can't accept…" She whispered. "This is too much."

Pulling her towards me by her towel so that she was pressed against me with by sheer animal force, I pressed my lips onto hers, devouring her mouth in mineand tastingthe blood that seeped in the cracks of her lower lip. A moan escaped her throat as she fell into my hands, and I allowed my myself to lose my rationale for a moment of complete self-indulgence before throwing her head ferociously away from me.

Heaving, she fell back, her eyes flying open from the sudden relinquishment of the intensity we shared.

Turning from her I made my way unsteadily to the door.

"Get dressed," I ordered dispassionately. "We have a wedding to attend."


	15. 15

This is probably the longest Chapter I've written since I restarted this project. Thank you all for your lovely, engaging, and critical reviews. I appreciate them all with gratitude. This Chapter means a lot to be because I am attempting the establish the relations between the two brothers – It is important to me to make it so that neither one nor the other is bad; on the contrary, they are just both devastatingly disadvantaged men, needing the support of more than just one woman.

I thank you all again for reading.

* * *

When she emerged in the doorway, I was just prepared to step out.

"Where are you going?"

I looked at her standing quite unsure of herself, her voice trailing at the last word as if confirming it would really make me go. How strikingly beautiful she looked, I noted; the dress fit her like a glove, molding their silk threads against ever soft curve of her body.

"I must fetch a priest for the ceremony," I replied evenly, "We'll need one for the wedding, my dear."

"The w-wedding?" Her hand traveled up her left arm, squeezing it as if it would give herself the strength to speak. "What wedding do you mean?"

I did not reply and went into my room and retrieved a new cloak from the closet, wrapping it around my shoulders as I walked back into the living room to find her sinking desperately into the chair. She watched in dumbfounded horror as I went about preparing a small meal for her in the kitchen, then coming back and setting the tray on the coffee table in front of her before gesturing towards the thin pieces of toast and butter with a motion of arrogance. "There is more bread if you like, but you must eat and chew it slowly. Don't swallow it all at once; I don't care how hungry you are. Or you should find yourself with a vengeful stomachache and unable to breath, do you hear?"

She nodded without hesitation.

I fetched the tea from her room and heated up the pot upon the samovar. I walked out of the kitchen to find her still sitting, staring at the food with disinterest of a child forced to study during her play.

"I don't intend on leaving until I'm assured that you will be eating," I replied honestly, "If you refuse, I'm afraid I will have to make you take the food down by force. And I warn you, that shan't be very pretty!"

Her eyes lowered and she lifted a piece of bread and bit into it slowly. Then swallowing it with what seemed like all the effort in her body, she took the second bite more forcefully.

Pleased by her wary obedience, I sighed and reached for my hat. "That's good, my dear—I won't be very long. I shall expect you to have finished that plate by the time I get back."

I left her like that, defeated and alone while I rowed across the lake and locked the gates of La Rue Scribe behind me. Luckily the hood on my cloak covered me, for it was raining terribly tonight! The rain beat down upon the ground in drumming torrents, flooding the streets with filthy pools of water. There was no way I could make my way to the church by foot, and I halted the first brougham in sight.

"The nearest Cathedral, quickly!" I ordered, and the carriage sprung with lightening speed. As we road, I began to recognize this path, one that I've taken man times by myself before. Only when we neared the grand estate did I realize I about to pass the house of the Vicomte de Chagny, and for once, unintended! But why not? I thought, curiously, why should I let this opportunity go, when fate has obviously forced us to meet again in this manner? The light in the boy's room was still on; no doubt of it he must be counting miserably by himself for the next moment he would see Christine. What a pity he should miss our wedding…

"Stop here!" I commanded suddenly. The brougham came to a halt; tossing some coins into the driver's seat, stepped out of the cab and made my way to the door of the grand estate. With a fervent hand I lifted the gold handle on the door and knocked soundly.

A maid opened the door. The house was dimly lit, and she could not make out my face under my hat and cloak in the dark.

"Monsieur?"

"I have a message for the Vicomte de Chagny," I said just loudly enough so she could discern what I was saying, "Regarding, Mademoiselle Christine Daae."

"But the Vicomte is already resting," the woman replied nervously, "I think it's better you come back tomorrow morning, Monsieur."

"I think it better you let him know that I am here to see him, ma'am," I said with measured menace, "Or tomorrow shall be too late."

The woman studied me with squinted eyes, before sighing and motioning for me to wait a moment. She returned with a surprise expression on her face, gesturing for me to come in. "Monsieur le Vicomte shall take you in his room. Come Monsieur, follow me."

"That won't be necessary."

I made my way up the stairs, down the corridors of the house that I've studied so well, and paused before the half opened doorway where the yellow light seeped through. An almost excited feeling crept over me as I reached for the knob and entered the chamber.

The boy sitting at his desk, a letter clenched in his hand which he held out curiously under the candlelight. He looked at up at me quickly, and then as if struck by lightening, jumped to his feet in a jolt and reached for the pistol protruding from his jacket pocket.

"Shoot me now, and you will never find her," I said grimly, completely put off by his lack for better reasoning. I walked towards him slowly, removing my hood and hat, setting it on the large wooden desk between us as if I had been prepared to shake his hand.

He stared at me dumbly, his lips trembling in the clenched and uncontrollable manner of a man who was not unsure if he'd just woken from a nightmare or seen a ghost.

I waited as his hands began to steady and slowly lower the weapon he so brashly pointed at me and drop it back into his jacket pocket. Sighing, I gestured for him to sit down.

He did so dully, as if relieved I'd given him the leave to rest for the moment.

"You must be wondering why I'm here, of all places," I said. I looked around his room, noting how it was tastefully done, from the brown quilted bed to the large innocuous clock that hung on the cream wall behind him. "I'm pleased to see your family has such tight security against visitors," I remarked sarcastically, "I suppose you don't except thieves to raid the estate often, do you?"

"What do you want," He asked with a frown in his voice. "What do I have to do to get Christine back?"

I shot him a glare of antagonism and sat down in the chair across from him. "You don't seem to understand, Monsieur le Vicomte," I said heavily, "that you've already had your chance with Christine! I thought growing up with Phillipe de Chagny would have taught you to share!"

"Don't mock me, you devil!" He slammed his fist down upon the desk in anger, and leaned towards me with maddening eyes of a lost boy, "I cannot share her with _you_—I will not!"

I frowned at him grimly, and sat back into the chair. His temper was oddly familiar—rather endearing really. The similarities in that enraged gaze and mine were quite unmistakable, and it was bothering me greatly. I did not come to duel verbally with the temperaments of myself…

"I'm curious…Has your mother ever told you of her life before she married in Paris?" I clenched my fists a little.

"What do you mean," He boy looked at me confusingly, "What does my mother's history have to do with Christine?"

"It has to do with _me_, you thick-headed boy," I snapped. Standing up irritably, I stood and walked over to his nightstand and picked up a silver frame which contained what looked like a family portrait. Examining it with enraged anxiety, my eyes searched for the delicate face of the woman who had borne me, but there was no vain face to glare back…

"She hadn't wished her portrait to be painted," Raoul's voice came softly from behind. It was tender, an sad whisper almost, "Mother hated seeing herself in pictures; She took down all the mirrors in the house once she moved in."

I spun around to face him, advancing towards him rapidly with a speed that sent him retreating backwards into the curtains.

"_Why_?"

"Why does it concern you?" He cried, gripping at his revolver again through sheer reflexes before I sent the pistol across the floor with a wave of my hand and pressed him quite tautly against the window.

"Did she ever say anything of her past—must you force me to pry it out of you?"

Raoul shook his head without struggle, obviously taken aback by the urgency with which I spoke. I released him and walked back around the desk and retrieved my hat.

"You don't except me to allow you to leave so easily, do you, Monsieur?" He followed me around the desk and stood before me, blocking my exit with all the courage of a warrior about to charge on his first battlefront.

"No, I don't," I sighed, fatigued suddenly by his determination, "But I'd rather expected you to be more helpful. Now if you'll excuse me, I have other important matters to attend to."

I turned around and opened the door to the balcony—too many nights, I've stood on this ledge watching the boy go about his normal nightly rituals. Reading his books, writing his love letters to Christine, and now this place looked as if it was my only way out, away from this house that still smelt of her—of Madeleine.

"If you don't take me to her, I'll shoot!"

I heard the click of the pistol. Without a doubt, the trembling hand that held it was doing so with unnatural candor.

"Fifty years ago, I knew a woman in Bosherville. On my fifth birthday, I severely severed my veins by breaking my bedroom mirror, and she promised me, that if I never took this mask off, the monster would never come back. She took off all the mirrors in the house and threw away even her own…But the monster still came back." I lowered my head, closing my eyes to the image that rose before me, "You see, it was not my face, but hers which haunts me…"

"Do you know her name, Raoul?"

His hands still trembled. "No…You're insane."

"Her name was Madeleine."

A popping noise instantly followed. A jab of pain grazed my left shoulder as I leaped over the balcony and landed in the grass. As the blood flowed down my arm, I did not look back, marching on as the rain beat steadily in the darkness.


	16. 16

What is it like to row in the dark? Well, painful, wet, calm…deafeningly still. It was very uncomfortable struggling with one arm as the boat shifted side to side—when I guided the ore with my left hand, a rush of wetness slid secretly down the shoulder, drenching the white shirt sleeve beneath my cloak. It was too cold to feel the pain and the ripples of the lake killed the silence. I could not think, but rowed unsteadily forward until I reached the shore.

With an exhausted arm I dropped the ore into the boat, leaping onto the ground with a speed that insisted too quickly to Christine that I was not very much my normal self. As steadfastly as possible I walked towards my bedroom, ignoring her presence with a forced indifference that I was afraid she thought less than convincing, for she followed me eagerly, still in her magnificent dress like a servant rushing with tender-hearted concern towards her Master who she knew only to shield in her nurturing care. I stopped suddenly, holding my left arm deep within the cloth that hide it, and held up a hand of defiance which motioned for her to stop in her advancement.

"Please allow me the privacy to attend to myself in my bath, my dear."

I kept my face averted from hers so she could not sense the intense fear and irritation behind my mask that she might follow me and unveil my injury. I had no intention of letting her see what her lover had inflicted upon me, nor did I think it was significant enough of a wound to call for her care. But I knew the moment I rejected her advances, I had fully reeled her into my secret.

"You are bleeding!" She gasped, her eyes misting in horror at the sight of the blood which trickled from the tips of my fingers onto the ground. "Oh God, Erik, it's everywhere!"

As she ran to face me and reached to lift my cloak I shifted a step to the left to duck her hand, and then to the right when she attempted again. I avoided her touch again and again until with an irritably exhausted sigh I fell into the couch behind me and removed the cloak, throwing it in the chair besides me in exasperation.

"Yes, it's bleeding very badly, my dear. Very _human_ of me, don't you suppose."

Her hand flew to her mouth and for a second looked as though she were about to faint. Then, as if fighting with some unforeseen voice in her head, she swallowed very determinedly and knelt before me. Her lower lip began trembling as she raised both of her small hands to roll up the sleeve of my blood-soaked dress shirt. I watched with unharmed fascination as she steadily creased each fold until the large gash was revealed in all its crimson glory. Single tears fell from her cheeks, landing with quiet warmth on my arm. I watched her from behind the mask as she opened her mouth to speak. She attempted, several times, and at last she found her voice.

"Tell me what must I do…"

I smiled grimly and leaned back from her, taking my eyes off the sorrowful gaze of the lost little girl that I hated to love. Why must I always tell you what you must do? Why can you never find the answer within your heart that would save me from my solitude? Why must I always guide you?...

I closed my eyes. I could feel the life leaving my arm, and then slowly perhaps, tomorrow, my chest, my legs, and lastly my mind…Perhaps the boy had saved me from having to face my own destruction by offering me his shot—a shot in the back nonetheless. Even if I did not deserve to die under the misguided bullet of an ignorant assassin, I could use this chance to let myself go.

I had pulled Death from the stack of Tarot cards, hadn't I? Death and Lovers, they were. Though I never did receive my Lover's end fair and squarely, I could always take Death as a greater cover. The Greeks thought Death and Love were as one, didn't they? If sex could annul the fear of death, why couldn't I use Death to annul love? I would never have to suffer from the absence of love if I let Death consume me. The Black Widow who has always been kind to me should take me now…before it was too late.

I must have fallen into a state of extreme delusion and unconsciousness because when I awoke, I was lying in my mother's bed, in a clean set of new trousers and dress shirt. The bandage on my left shoulder was tightly wrapped and bound, almost tight enough that I could feel the veins beneath my muscles pulsating to the flow of blood. I awoke several times during the night, only to quickly surrender to the heaviness of my lids and fall into a deep sleep again. This time, there were no dreams, but each time as I half parted my lids, I was faintly aware of a still white figure sitting besides me…I heard nothing, but I felt hands on my face, caressing. My arms, stroking.

When at last I awoke, Christine was holding a cup of herbal syrup in her hands. I pushed myself into an upright position feverishly and leaned against the coolness of the hard headboard. It only took a moment for me to realize that my mask was gone and I turned away from her immediately, aghast at the sudden anxiety that I felt towards her suddenly oppressive presence.

"What are you doing?" I muttered through clenched teeth. Suddenly the sting arrived with a jolt into my left arm, running up and down from my neck to my fingertips with merciless stabbing.

She pushed the foul smelling potion towards me with her hands. "I made it with what I found in the cabinets…I tried to mix the ingredients from your herbal book of remedies on your drawer."

I let my gaze slid down to the cup in her hand. I'd never seen a remedy like it—but I suppose if I drank it, it would satisfy her and send her away immediately. I took it.

The think liquid sank uneasily down my throat but I swallowed. I wanted her to see that it pleased me that she attempted at something useful. I wanted to give her the satisfaction of seeing me take whatever she made into my mouth. But I knew it would do nothing. I kept my face turned to the right side so only half of the rotting corpse head was available to her searching eyes.

"How long have you been sitting there?"

"Two nights." She set the cup on the table beside the bed. I heard her bit her lip until she tasted blood. "You were, not yourself Erik…"

If I could I would have shrank into the ground and never emerged. I wanted so badly to have my mask back…yet I could not summon up the strength to ask for it.

"I hope I've sufficiently amused you during my stupor."

She lowered her head and continued to bite her lower lip. "No."

I sat up straightening my shoulders and leaned slowly towards her, making sure to keep the distance within arms reach between our bodies. She looked up at me with a look that seemed to beg me to take her in my arms, but I could not…There was a repellent anger in my chest that rose when I saw my reflection in those watery pupils that might have looked so pristinely into the eyes of my half-brother. They were not the eyes that I wanted to trust…my body ached to hold her, but my hands suppressed the urge to strike her.

I was in physical pain. What is a man suppose to feel when shot in the back by his own brother and then nursed to life by his lover? I wanted to spit in her face and tell her that she did not deserve my forgiveness—she did not deserve this Erik, the one who could not bear to send the lasso around her wretched neck so those vocal chords would cease to produce lies! She did not deserve the Angel of Music but the Angel of Doom—the unforgiving demon that would end her misery on a whim because he was able to overcome his moral tragedies through reason. Simple reason.

But no, here is your Don Juan, Christine, sitting before you like the savage beast that he is, nursed by the beauty who adores and loathes him—and he knows not whether to take you or to strike you!

"_Oh Christine_," I sobbed suddenly, unable to contain my frustration any longer, so that I leapt up from the other side of the bed and sat as far away from her as possible. In the chair behind the desk that faced the bed, I leaned back into it and rested my head on my unharmed hand. My temples pounded with incessant drumming, but I let them pound, for any noise was better than the noise of her insufferable breathing.

"_Leave me_."

She sat perfectly still and watched as I sank my head into my hand and glided it through my hair in a strained movement of aggravation. My hand smoothed behind my neck and around my collar to the top button of my shirt, which she must have clumsily buttoned because it came apart easily and I could feel the sweat in my skin welcoming the cool air against its pores.

I was no longer breathing heavily, but shaking from fury and astonishment. How did this happen? How had I allowed myself to be degraded to the point of a _patient_ in a hospital, entirely at the mercy of a child? When did the roles become reversed, that I was no longer capable of teaching but now only learning to accept defeat at the softness of her aiding hands? What can I do to stop this madness from overtaking me before rage consumes me and I force her upon that bed into the very sheets where my mother bore me, without pity, almost without regret?

I groaned into my hand and wiped the bottles of perfume from her dresser madly with my arm. She jumped at the sound of my violent smash of the glass against the floor and began walking shakily towards me.

"Erik…"

I lifted my arms in defiance in front of me, pointing at the door with my bandaged arm with determination so loud that I knew she daren't refuse.

"_Get out._"

"Erik!..." As she walked closer, I pushed myself backwards with the chair with my legs, keeping that taut rope between us extended at the exact distance which would still allow me self-control.

"_Do it now. Do it now before I make you regret you saved me_."

She stopped, and then she backed away. Her tears still flowed freely down her pale cheeks as she clumsily reached for the door and opened it enough so she could slid her small body through. As released a contemptuous snarl, she finally shut the door tightly…I could hear her running towards the boat. Up up, she would go. To the arms of her safe Vicomte. No doubt she would find solace there.

I opened a hidden repository in the desk drawer and retrieved the packet of morphine I had saved.

There was no better time for you, my friend. The elation that would only charm and harm me at the same time lies within your artificial magic. For as long as I entrusted in you my veins, Christine would be safe from my arms.

At least for tonight.


	17. 17

I notice that recent reviews have shown many upset readers who are disappointed by my developement of Erik. I have to thank you dearly for reading and writing such reviews because it does encourage me to keep working on this enigma of a character. Even though this may not be the essential "Erik" of everyone's dreams, it is still the Erik that I secretly wish could be. An Erik who is as mad as he is human--flawed as he is perfect. Thank you again for all your reviews! They are as wonderful as they are scathing :-)

* * *

Floating in a cloud of self-induced bliss, I was relieved. I was not happy, but I remembered in that mist that the events which preceded her leaving were not detrimental to our relationship. The morphine calmed everything that was evil, disheartening, and made me smile as I slowly drew myself up and made my way wearily from the room. My legs felt heavy yet I was elated. My mind was experiencing for the first time in weeks a sense of selfish bliss that excluded all inanimate objects around me...My vision was focused, like a tunnel, towards my next step, my next square foot of ground that I must walk upon. I sank down at my organ and leaned my head heavily into my arms. I wished to stay like this, unaware of doom and darkness—emerged in the superficiality of my ecstasy forever.

But what was I dreaming? For every uprising, there will be a downfall. That was the "balance" the great mysterious one has created for us all, wasn't it? Even in my delirium of bliss the fear began to rise that soon this feeling will be lost…the need for a new refill of "happiness" must be injected in my veins before the level of happiness sinks lower and lower on the barometer of emotions...

Damn it! Where was Jules?

A voice began echoing the back of my mind. As familiar as it was, I could barely decipher the reality of the sound. Was I dreaming it in my hallucination? Why was it becoming louder and louder, reprimanding as it spoke and struck me with it's intense disapproval?

Suddenly I remember where I've heard that voice before. It was an old voice, a tired, most upsettingly recognizable sound—It shook with emotion whenit spoke.

"What are you doing?"

I could only catch bits and pieces of phrases in my daze.

"Why?...You self-destructive idiot! Erik! Why? Wake up you fool! Wake up!"

Suddenly hands were shaking my shoulders from behind and then as the grip tightened, I lifted my head and forced my eyes to open.

"Leave me alone," I gasped… "I don't want you here…"

I flung my arms in defiance towards Nadir but he caught them in his hands and squeezed them with surprising strength. He shook by the arms me again and again, angrily muttering curses under his breath until at last I stood and pulled myself exhaustedly from his grip.

"Enough!"

I backed away from him, holding my chest in my arms. I was still quite happy—destroyed and happy, but still content with the sense of calmness that Nadir had not yet interrupted. "Do you wish to join me, daroga? I'm afraid there's none left for you old friend!"

I think he made a gesture of anger with his hands. "You really disappoint me, Erik. I would have never believed it unless I saw this self-destructivenessfor myself!" He walked over to where the pipe organ sat and rummaged through Don Juan with curious fingers. "At least you're still writing. At least you've put _some_ of your genius to use!"

I groaned with annoyance.

He turned to me and dropped the papers onto the organ seat. He walked towards me steadily—his presence was such an oppressive mood-kill that I felt myself uneasily backing away.His movements were made almost predatorily, and I was his unwilling prey, caught in the net of his reprimanding.

"Shame on you!" He whispered in his native tongue. "I suffered…I suffered for _you_, Erik! I suffered for the man I thought worthy of a future…and what is this?A _phantom,_ who's too indulgent with morphine to even come out of his cocoon, you disappointing wrench!"

"Nadir—please, stop!" I gasped for air, extending a hand out in defiance of his advancing figure. My left arm went to hold my stomach…the contrast of emotions tipped off the balance. I was no longer happy, nor sad, but awake, and listening to his tirade.

"The years in the Shah's penetentuary were not bad, you know…I could deal with those. But I thought to myself, he is off somewhere, somehow doing good—extending his magic to the world in a way that I could not. It was a worthy sacrifice no matter how I suffered. And now I see that it was all useless—it was all false hopes on my part! I have failed Allah by releasing a beast to the wild!"

I began to choke. What was this? This is not what I wanted…I was supposed to be enjoying this time alone, quietly sinking into the euphoria that involved only my illusions. But I could barely withstand Nadir's shaming voice which loomed from all directions now. Years of living utterly without conscience taught me to forget this voice, the same voice that laughed at my satirical jokes and gasped at my magic. This voice had been successfully hidden in my mind, but I was unprepared for its abruptreturn, and it was louder than ever.

"You've really outdone yourself, Erik. Whatshall I do with you now? _What do I do?_"

"I'm not your responsibility, daroga…" I said without looking at him. "I can take care of myself."

"Like this?" He almost laughed if it were not for the choking pain in his voice. "You can take care of yourself as a fiend? As an animal living in a _cage_?"

My head shot up. "What _cage_?"

He sighed, opening up his hands to the things which surrounded him. "What do you call this place, Erik? This artificial kingdom of black candles and false pretense? A house which only the sick-minded can withstand, only the insane can live in _alone_? Is this not a cage? Is this not your form of self-imprisonment?"

I swallowed. Stepping back into the wall, I let it hold me up I could fold my arms around my stomach which began to pound with pain. I gasped for air as I sank onto the ground, burying my head in my hands once again. Suffocation overwhelmed me. I could not breathe.

"I'm not an animal…" I said. I repeated it again loudly so he could hear me. "I swear it, I'm not an animal…"

"Yet you live like one," He finished. He roundedupon me like a shadow of reason. "You live like a richly honed animal, but an animal is still an animal whether you dress it in diamonds or rags, isn't it?"

"Please…Leave me in peace,"I cried, unsurewhether my face was wet from tears or sweat. Suddenly I remembered Nadir did not have the keys to the gates. He could not have gotten here without someone to llet him in.

I raised my head at the man who stood over me and asked tiredly in Persian, "How did you get here?"

"Ms. Daae led me to your house, Erik. Yes, that's right don't look at me like that! Ms. Daae lead me to your _domain_!"

I blinked, wiping the liquid salt from my eyes with a hand that shook so hard I could barely recognize it as my own.

"Why?"

Nadir nodded confimingly, his eyes never leaving mine. He backed up a bit and began pacing back and forth, a motion that made me even dizzier than I had been.

"I would have never figured it out, Erik. I give you credit for that. You hid it very well from me, this whole ordeal with Mademoiselle Daae and her suitor, ironically but not conveniently, named Raoul de Chagny."

I leaned my head against the wall, trying to make out his figure distinctly as he spoke.

"Stop your pacing; I can't focus," I ordered. He was becoming more and more blurry as he walked, it seemed as though he everything was done in slow motion, when in actuality, I knew from experience that Nadir liked to pace very hurriedly. He did not stop. Instead I walked around the room in his detective like manner, examining everything with his hands until at last walking back towards me. I began to push myself up with my strong arm, and stood weakly. I needed to sit, fast.

Surprised that he would take my arm but he did, the Persian leaned me against him and brought me to the sofa. He sat me down, sighing.

"Tell me what am I to do with you now."

"Where is she?" I asked, keeping my gaze averted to the ground. I could no longer play the winner in our little war—Nadir had found everything—he knew of everything that mattered to me and I had nothing left to hide. It was a matter of time before he discovered that I had planned for Christine and I to marry; that is, if she did not let him in on that part already.

"She's in her room."

I thought I hadn't heard him correctly and shook my head before I asked again.

"Where is she?"

Nadir sat across from me and leaned intensely forward. "Erik!"

I looked up at him, meeting his square gaze with all the energy left in my body.

"She's in her room."

I think I lost it then. If I had been mad before, it was nothing as mad as I felt now. It was easily not a negative madness, but a good kind of madness—the kind that freezes one into his seat because he had just been hit with a sense of revelation. A revelation that consumes one's soul to the degree where he does not even understand why it moves him. It was as if those four words were the voice of God that human ear was never allowed to hear…I think I lost all my madness through _madness_ in those four words.

Suddenly, I could see clearly.

Nadir sat across from me, in awrinkled brown suit as hiseyes darted from my exposed arm to my wounded shoulder. He'd been in the rain, and his hair was a distraught mess. The expression on his face was one of pity, self-loathing, and confused distain.

I was no longer shaking. I just looked at the man with the same aptitude of respect with which he regarded me…which seemed, even though after he'd discovered me in this state, still existent!

"Why did she come back?" I said softly, not sure whether it was a question addressed to myself or Nadir.

The Persian entwined his fingers in front of him and shook his head with a shrug of his shoulders. "You ask me as if I can answer that for the lady."

Then sighing, he must have thought over his response and continued. "I met her at the gates, and she allowed me to explain myself to her—she seemed most relieved that we were friends. She was in a completely distressed state when I saw her, and I think I gave her quite a scare. But once I explained I knew who you were, she insisted that I come down with her. She knew her way down here well…I could tell she's been through the labyrinth many times before. She said she was afraid you might do something terrible to yourself…She was very concerned."

"Was she?" I said softly. "I thought she would be frightened…"

"She was," he said, "But only for you.The little mademoiselleseems oddly wise for her age. I sense the relationship between you two is not entirely platonic."

I smiled slightly. "No. Not entirely."

There was a silence between us that bordered on uncomfortable. He seemed to be examining me deeply with his dark eyes, trying to scrutinize the expression of my body with the police chef's "prying-eye" that he had used so often in his practice. When at last I did not yield a form of expression, he spoke.

"I assume the dress she's wearing is not a costume."

"No, it is not a costume," I confirmed his word, and could not contain the broadening grin any longer. "I'm surprised you don't recognize my design when you see it."

"I'm normally accustomed to picking up your _architectural_ designs, Erik." Daroga said. Then pausing, he continued warily, "Why do I have the faintest feeling that this wedding will proceed without a proposal?"

I shrugged. "Proposals I find to be Petty sentiment."

"Or your brother."

"Ah but I rethought that after he shot me so poorly in the back!"

"Perhaps he shot you because you stole his fiancé!"

"I did not steal," I corrected, "I took what was mine. I had intended to let him in on the family secret though I don't think he believed me."

"I had sent him the documentation two days ago. He should know it is not a lie."

My mind flashed to the letter in Raoul's hand when I entered his room.

Of course! The pensive look on his face, the sweat that trickled from his brow before he saw me standing there—He had known! But why would he feign ignorance when I asked him about our mother? Could it be that he chose to ignore the facts out of spite?

_Mother hated seeing herself in pictures; She took down all the mirrors in the house once she moved in._

Then again there was such a tenderly tip-toeing of _pain_ when he said that. Perhaps she'd hurt as much as he hurt me…perhaps he was as bitter towards her inability to nourish as I was. But that was such a stretch, I thought. Why would she if he were the perfect child that she'd always wanted?

"He replied to my letter with this," Nadir withdrew a small package from the inside jacket pocket and handed it to me. It was silk scarf with a message written in dark red which I recognized to be blood as I examined it further. But there was also a letter in the Vicomte's name inside the scarf. I read that one first.

_Dear Monsieur,_

_ It is imperative that you do not allow this information to be disclosed to the public as must know it will affect my father's name. However, I thank you for deepening my understanding of my mother's unhappiness. I had always known her to be terribly damaged and could never figure out exactly why. I am aware now that is it because she has lost someone very dear to her—someone who she refused to speak of until her death. She left me this scarf with a message that I must give to the man that she only called "Erik". I trust you know his whereabouts better than I, for if I find him in person I will most likely kill him. I have no proof but an intuitive sense of ill-omen that it is the same man who has kept my fiancé from me for weeks. Understand it will be too painful to lose another woman in my life to this "Erik"…But I will not disobey my mother's dying wish—please return this scarf to him if and when you should meet him again._

_ I give you my gratitude with great sincerity._

_ Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny_

My fingers unraveled the scarf…Shards of glass fell onto the ground. Atop the broken mirror pieces lay a small white mask. Brown, dried blood in the shape of two lips were imprinted on the right cheek of the mask. With a trembling hand I lifted the scarf and read the message with nervous eyes.

_ Erik…Here is the kiss that I was a fool to deny you._

The material fell, floated, and landed on the ground between us. I stood and made my way towards the organ, grasping my fingers around the manuscripts of Don Juan with wide eyed emotion and wrinkled them under my fists…I pushed them out of my way as I sat and spread my hands across the keys of the organ before me…And with a violent cry I buried my head in my hands striking a most painful, gut-wrenchingly ugly chord with the force of my upper body.

My body was shaking from my cries. But I cried. And cried.

And cried.

Silently, I screamed in my mind—I wanted so badly to hate her all my life, but there lived no hate in that message she'd left. It had been too late but she still found a way to show me the light. If I had not run away perhaps she would have given me the care I had needed so badly from her arms…If I had not run away I would not be here tonight. I had believed that I lost everything to that boy because he had the physical presence of mother and wife, but now I saw that he had nothing—and that he never really had anyone from the beginning. I had taken everything from him since the first night I was born, and I did it all unknowingly. But he had had every right to hate me for it now. He was justified for pulling the trigger against his brother. Perhaps he never even missed. Perhaps he aimed crookedly on purpose.

Somehow I believed that none of us could be happy for the rest of our lives.

God only knows, we could not save ourselves from our tears tonight.


	18. 18

I rowed Nadir across the lake.

When I returned, I stood in front of her bedroom door, starring at the doorknob with all the unwillingness to turn it as if it had been made of hot coal. Yes, I was afraid of resolute woman behind this door who instead of running away for Raoul, stayed behind for Erik. I was afraid of the new Christine who dared to make a choice.

I clenched and unclenched my hands. I reached for the door, and then withdrew. Again and again I make the gesture to grasp onto the copper before stopping an inch short of the metal and brushing the air around it. Two magnets repelling, refusing to collide. Finally, it was she who turned the key; the door slowly opened, and she stood before me in her wedding dress, calmly looking up into my face as I stood rigidly without response.

Her hands crept from her stomach to my lapel, and then slowly she traced the line of my bandaged arm with her fingertips. She took a step forward, lifted herself up on her tip toes, and pressed her little lips to my wounded shoulder.

"Poor, unhappy Erik," She said.

I was ready to faint, but my feet held me tenaciously on the ground. Still, I swayed at the pressure of her mouth, and I closed my eyes, allowing the tears which clouded my vision to flow from the corners of my lids down past the wretched wrinkles of my flesh.

To be kissed on the shoulder by Christine Daae—I could not have asked for more blessed happiness.

I turned from her and made my way across the room as steadily as possible. I had to walk very slowly you see, for even as I walked I felt as if my feet might have been carried through thin air!

"You must go, my dear," I said as I crossed my arms beneath my cloak and began twisting the material of my sleeves with my hands. "I shan't keep you here any longer."

I spread my quivering hands across the mantelpiece above the fireplace and sighed as I bowed my head. "You may go as you please. The Vicomte is waiting for you at his house—I don't know what he'll do if you do not return. I daresay the poor young lad might search forever, and the inconsequence will drive him mad!"

My back stiffened as I felt her approaching, her skirts shuffling around her making the most unbearable noise! Then her hands were upon me, and her arms were around my waist, and as she squeezed me tightly in her embrace, she pressed her cheek against my back.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No," I replied, shortly, with clipped gasps. "I don't want you to go. I never want you to leave me, Christine. You are mine, always, but I shall never have you. I haven't been kind, and I can't keep you here forever in the dark."

Her hands clasped tightly onto my body as if she did not hear me, and then turning around to face her I pulled them forcefully from me, but I could not let go of her arms. I let my skeleton hands slipped down to her wrists and turned her palms up towards me. Pressing my lips into each hand, I prayed that she would understand my plead forgiveness. How terrible had I been to these hands, and these poor poor bandaged little fingers…

At last, still gasping, I pulled away from her with a gesture of surrender—

"Go now. Take the boat…I won't need it, my dear."

"But Erik—"

"Please, do as I say!" When she protested again, I yelled in pain, "Haven't you had enough? Remember the coffin, Christine—I know you do not wish to meet with it again, and if you ever yearn to come back here, think of the coffin. Go, take the boat now, and hurry!"

Just then the electric bell rang and it took me a second to collect that someone was in the torture chamber. Or perhaps it was more than just some _one_.

"What have we here?" I said, looking up with stunned curiosity as I listened to the voices within. Nadir, at first, and then a younger voice, faintly familiarly valiant voice—why, Raoul!

"What fools," I muttered, and turned to Christine, who I expected to be alarmed and frightened at voices from the torture chamber. But she did not move. In fact, it seemed as though she had heard nothing at all. She simply stared at me if she had been concentrating on an act of conviction for a very long time. She sucked in a small breath of air and walked towards me, one foot melodiously placed before the other until at last she was as a living bride would be, standing before me with her arms extended out to me, like a wife, begging for her husband's embrace.

"_Christine_," I said with command, as if prying her awake from a dream, but she drew in a breath and lifted her hands to my face.

"I'm here, Erik…" She whispered. "I am ready."


	19. 19edited

The screams, the screams! From the torture chamber, the voices rose. They were harsh, dry, barely discernible, but they were loud. I could hear them scream from within.

"Let her go, Monsieur, _let her go_!"

"Erik, you promised me you wouldn't kill another soul! You promised!"

I looked down at Christine Daae who had her arms outstretched, and she met my gaze steadily. I knew she knew they were trapped within, but neither of us made a sound. Neither of us turned towards the source of the horrible noise. We played pretend, like we were standing in a peaceful garden, and nothing could break through our Eden-like bliss: neither the Persian who I trusted as my friend nor the young man who I knew as my brother held sway in this house tonight.

"Christine! Christine!" The young man yelled. And she took a step towards me.

Slowly I entwined her hands in mine and pulled her close, so close against me that I could feel the heaving of her chest, the soft mounds of her breast rising and falling against my skin as she breathed. I let my hands travel up her sleeve, tenderly stroking the smooth pale skin of her shoulder, her collarbone, and then her neck. Her small breakable neck was now suddenly at the mercy of my monstrous hands. My fingers touched her face; they crept to her cheeks, and I cupped them in my palms. I pulled her face towards mine and brought my lips against her mouth. I suckled the sweet breath between her lips and tasted the wet, warm honey of her tongue. I kissed her slowly. Precariously, until my grotesque mouth became one with hers and we were joined at the openings where only songs had known such passage.

Her hands were upon my back. Her nails dug into my suit jacket and she clawed downwards until she released and pulled her hands upwards into the skin of my neck. She pulled me closer to her, pulled my head into the shelter of her hands, and kissed my ravaged flesh, my mismatched eyelids, my hollow cheeks, around my gaping nose, and back upon my mouth where my quivering tremulous lips awaited. She called out my name between these kisses. She cried out my name between her embraces.

She unbuttoned the top of my dress shirt, pulling the collar aside with her small hands. Her lips were upon my heart, and I knew she could hear the thing which I thought had died, pounding loud, thunderous beats.

"Christine! Christine!"

Rip! Slip! The suit jacket was off my back. The shirt was gone, leaving a bandaged arm. I lifted her into my arms, and carried her into her bedroom. I sat her on the bed with her back against me and undid the laces in the back of her dress. Swoosh!

Ragged breathing from us both. Gasps here and there. The dress laid limp on the ground.

"Christine! Christine!"

She turned to me, her naked legs wrapped around my hips.

Zip! Slip!

"Christine! Christine!"

Insertion—Warmth! Inexplicable sensation below my waist! Burning, painful, hateful sensation!…I pushed her harshly against the headboard. Bang! Gasp! She yelps, but not in pain. Her head falls back, she bites her lips. Grunts, groans! I closed my mouth over hers again. Hush…

Thrust after thrust! "Erik! Erik!"

Oh pain! What was this wonderful feeling?

"Christine! Christine!" The voice in the chamber called again and again.

"My Erik," She cries.

I pressed my hand over her mouth, muffling her cries.

"Yes, I am your Erik," I said between gasps, "I am only Erik…."

We clung onto each other mercilessly. Her pink flesh throbbed against me, her breast beat against my chest. I could smell the perspiration trickling down our necks, and the urgency with which I caught the dripping of salt in my mouth made her exhale in ecstasy. I had never tasted anything so magnificent. I had never seen anything so wonderful.

I pushed her into the sheets vigorously, pressing my body on-top of hers so that she was cuffed in my arms. We moved as one. Beating! Thump, thump, thump!

"You abhor me for the coffin?" I grasped her head in my hands whispered in her ear.

Her face pressed into my neck; her lower lip rushed up the trail of my veins to my jaw. "I couldn't breath in there, Erik. You punished me too well…"

"Then you loathe me?"

Thrust! Thrust!

"I do," She cried. "I loathe you and I love you. I love you and I loathe you."

Cries!

"But do not ask me anymore, Erik! No more questions."

Yes, no more words. Just sounds. I supposed she loved what she was most repulsed by…I supposed the coffin was a mistake that did the trick; the coffin made her mad with love. I grasped her shoulders and flipped her atop of me. She sat up.

"Christine! Christine!"

"You're Vicomte is calling," I said. "Do you hear him?"

"Yes, I hear him," She replied and closed her eyes.

Push! Rush! Implosion!

"Hush, my dear…No more…No more."

I sat up abruptly – her legs still around me. Yes, the voices were getting dryer by the second. "The heat is suffocating them to death. They will be dead men very soon."

Her eyes opened slightly. She turned her face towards the noise and looked back into my eyes. "Very soon?"

I pulled away. I dressed, turned to her, and cupped her face between my fingers.

"Yes, Soon."

Her eyes did not scream. They remained fixed on me – waiting, waiting for me to make a choice. She touched my fingers just as I retrieved my hand. I motioned for her to stay where she was, and made my way to the torture chamber door.

I knocked three times.

"Christine! Christine! What is happening? I can't breath!" The boy was hoarse. It must have taken all his strength to say her name.

"I'm glad to see you are still alive." I replied. "What of you, Daroga—how long has your mind feasted upon the noose in my forest?"

They were shocked to hear my voice; thus there was silence for a moment, and then the Persian replied.

"Erik, I hope you have not done something terrible to the Mademoiselle."

I looked over at Christine. She smiled.

"The Mademoiselle might have enjoyed her coffin more than she admits."

"Erik!" Nadir was more exhausted than infuriated. "You broke your promise to me—and you still care to make me laugh?"

"It's very inconvenient to make you cry, Daroga." I sighed. "As much as it pains me to see you trapped, I cannot be blamed for your folly."

I called or Raoul. "Vicomte, perhaps you've found the rope?"

A painful pause.

"I want her back, Erik…" Came the boy's sad voice. "You can't have everything—Not everything."

"I do not need anything, _mon frere_, only Christine."

The boy gave an agonizing cry. "I beg of you, Erik..." He gasped. "...I love her...You can't keep her forever...here...You don't mean to hide her...here…and have children _here_...!"

"But the choice is hers, isn't it?"

"She will never survive,... in your royal tomb…" His voice was breaking. "I beg of you as a brother, Erik, please let her go…"

He was resorting to his last card of logic. He had really thought this one through, hadn't he? Someone must have prepped him to the ending.

I looked over at Christine; with reserved quaintness, she stared into the wall. An unrecognizable look crossed her face. Pity? No. I couldn't be absolutely _sure_…Perhaps I should offer her the opportunity to answer him herself.

I turned the same scorpion key. The heat poured into the room like a desert's current and Nadir was the first to collapse onto the floor. The poor Vicomte, who at the sight of my face could not keep his eyeballs from rolling to the back of his head, fell limply into my arms.


	20. 20

The quiet living room was interrupted by the sound of calm breathing. I laid a cold hand on Nadir's forehead and watched as he slept. His old lids remained shut, and he made no movement at my touch. Noting the steady rise and fall of his chest, I was satisfied with his condition.

I called for Christine, and she came to me from her bedroom fully dressed. My mother's small book of poetry was pressed tightly in her hands. Our eyes met for a moment before I stood and walked over to the boy.

He had been sleeping like a babe. His body sunk like deadweight into the cushions, and he made no reaction when Christine came over to lay an absent palm on his head. She barely glanced down.

Without taking my eyes off him, I asked, "Would you heat up some tea on the samovar?"

She nodded and left the room silently.

I bent over Raoul and examined his smooth face closely for the first time. Yes, he looked very much like Madeleine, especially at the nose which was small and straight; except for the slightly abrupt upwards tilt at the tip, it was a nose that suggested the inability to submit. If I had been born with a nose, perhaps it would have looked something like this.

The bone structure of his face was softer than Madeleine's. But the corners of his lips, which even in sleep curled upwards in a vain, unintentionally contemptuous manner, could have been transposed from my mother's skull. I found myself staring down at her face, and not Raoul's. She seemed to be dreaming before my eyes.

I leaned a bit closer to his ear. "Wake up, Madeleine," I whispered, "Wake up and see your son."

Raoul's body shuddered. Had he heard me? His lovely motionless features seemed to contort at the sound of that name. His lips, still mocking, seemed forced shut. I pulled away for a moment, allowing myself to breath. Family reunions were harder than I'd imagined.

Christine emerged from the kitchen, a tray of tea in hand, and some damp towels thrown across her arm. She kept her eyes focused on the tray as she walked and set it down gently upon the table coffee table between us. At the sound of the tray meeting the glass, Nadir sat up. He propped his upper body with his two arms and looked about with wide open eyes that struggled to focus on his surroundings. When at last he recognized me, he fell back in exhaustion.

Christine placed a damp towel on his forehead, and I think he mumbled a word of gratitude. Slowly he turned his head towards me.

"You must not try to speak, Daroga," I said wearily. "The boy is resting."

I turned to Christine, I said calmly. "My dear, could you fetch some clothes from my closet for the Vicomte? Yes, you may choose whichever one – I'm afraid we'll have to roll up the pant legs if they are too long."

When she brought me the clean clothes, I peeled the soaked suit from Raoul's body and dressed his awkwardly heavy limbs in my shirt and trousers. Indeed they seemed to swallow him in their length and I had to fold the pants and sleeves several times before his hands and feet slipped through. He looked like a little boy lost in his father's clothes.

I escorted Nadir to my room and allowed him the privacy to change inside. As I closed the door behind me, Raoul awoke, calling out Christine's name. I watched as she went over to him, brushed his forehead with her small hand, and slipped back into her chair by the fireplace; she seemed engulfed by the contents of my mother's book.

There was no sound but the ticking of the mantel clock and the crisp flipping of pages.

Raoul's eyes fell on me, and once again at the sight of my face, he lost a bit of his color. I think he had possessed the strength to cross himself, he would have done so.

I took measured paces towards him– I didn't want him to faint again. _That would not have been very good for his health._

I stopped abruptly and bent over him, looking into his widened eyes that could not tear themselves away from my face; horrible fascination had consumed him.

"I know – the resemblance is startling, isn't it?" I smiled, lifting his significantly smaller hand in my bony grasp and turning his palm upwards towards me. He gasped at my touch. "But it says here you will have a very long and painless life." I showed him my own hand. "I cannot say the same for myself."

He pulled away and tried to sit up. His eyes darted to Christine, who looked up briefly between turning another page and continuing with her reading.

Raoul pushed himself up against the arm of the couch and called to her. He was very aware of my watching him watch her, but he continued to stare dully at her. "What has happened? What has happened while I was in that forest?"

"You exert yourself, Vicomte." I poured him a cup of tea which he took down too quickly and began to choke on the liquid. "Now you must drink slower than that." I poured him a second cup. "That's better. No, no, that is enough." I took it away from him as he craned his neck for more.

"Too much liquid too fast will not be good for your health."

He stared at me dumbly. "Why are you doing this?"

I grasped onto his wrist and pushed up the sleeve. Pressing two fingers into his veins, I felt for his heartbeat. Steady. I released his arm.

"You will be free to go in few hours," I said evenly. "Do not be too anxious to sit up again or I will have to tie you down by force. If you try to stand up now, you might faint." I shook my head at him. "I don't plan to catch you again."

Despite the tensing crease between his brows, he leaned his head back in resignation. He did not call out to Christine again, but he listened as I did, to the steady flipping of the pages.

"How strange," she said suddenly. Words came fluttering softly from her tongue:

"I wish to shy away from fears,

That forms my towering dam of tears,

But I fear as my own death nears,

No one shall cry over my bier."

"I am going to check on Nadir," I said and stood curtly. "If you need anything else, _my wife_ shall attend you."

Raoul closed his eyes and a jagged wet line made its way down the corner of his left cheek. His lips twisted, contorted, almost as ugly as my own, and he turned to his side, covering his face with both his smooth hands.

"Christine, _why_? _Why_?"

Christine shut the book. Shemurmured beneath her breath. She stood. Her eyes visibly absent as she walked over to Raoul and placed a light hand on his shoulder.

"Don't cry, Raoul." She shook him gently. "Don't cry."

The poor boy trembled with his hands over his face as she comforted him. But her eyes never left mine. Even as she stroked his hair, she stared into my eyes.


	21. 21

"Come my friend."

Nadir took Raoul by the arm, dragging him away from Christine with what was left of the strength in his old arms. Christine picked up the Vicomte de Chagny's wet clothes, and draped them over his arm. He grabbed her hand as she did so, and told her to wait. His hand sunk into the left jacket pocket, and withdrawing from there the ruby engagement ring, he handed it to her.

"I want this back when you give me your wedding invitation in person." He said with determination. "Do not forget."

I watched as she squeezed the bauble tightly in the palm of her hand, and tilted her head in a small nod. Oddly saddened, I felt compelled to stare.

"Erik." The boy said, "Promise me you'll allow her to deliver the invitation by hand?"

I nodded once.

My compliance seemed to have comforted him more than Christine's meek agreement; he nodded to himself quite nervously, and then with almost an urgent sense of departure, he leapt into the boat. One would have found it difficult to conceive that this was the same lad who'd been lying unconscious on my couch just an hour ago.

Nadir kissed Christine's hand politely and followed after Raoul. As the boy picked up the oar, Nadir turned to me and smiled. As congratulatory as his smile was, I found it uneasy to return the greeting.

They rowed away slowly, and so she waited until they were out of hearing distance before turning around and taking my hand in hers. Her face was flushed, exhilarated.

"Come, Erik," She said, and pulled me towards her room.

* * *

She had never meant to return. It had crossed my mind that perhaps she would not keep her word to Raoul, but to not do so would prove that she were not the Christine I'd believed her to be. That was to say, if she had chosen the boy instead, would she never come to deliver the invitation to me?

Days passed, then weeks. I waited patiently for her to bring up the time of day when she would deliver the message to the Vicomte by hand. I told her that I did not plan to set a date for the wedding until she wrote a mock invitation. She knew there was no one to invite, really. Except for perhaps Nadir and—Raoul. I watched with tremendous unease as she made herself comfortable about my house; she seemed to have forgotten everything else. I began to see her as a flower child lost in a much distorted fantasy.

Finally, taking into consideration my own promise and the fact that I did not want her to conceive before we were married, I ordered her to deliver that invitation.

She looked at me as if she had not heard correctly.

"N-now?"

"Of course," I said, "How much longer must you wait?"

She was sitting down on the couch and started to fidget with the lace on her skirt nervously. "I—I don't think I feel very well this week. Perhaps the following Sunday?"

"Perhaps you would like to wait until you are with child. Would that be better timing?

She bit her lip and turned her face away from me.

"Why are you so afraid? Is it the thought of seeing him which scares you, or the thought of having to return to me afterwards?"

She closed her eyes and clasped her head in her hands. "Please don't make me!"

"I promised him too, Christine."

I poured her a cup of tea and handed it to her gently. She took it from me and sipped it slowly with her timid lips. She took several sips and looked up.

"What kind of tea is this?"

"Green."

"It tastes different."

"Add honey."

She took another sip and set the cup down. I watched her lean back in to the couch and close her eyes. She seemed to be thinking about something.

"Have you enjoyed your stay here Christine?"

She nodded.

"Do you have any regrets, Christine?"

She shook her head.

"How many times have you thought of Raoul, Christine."

She opened her eyes.

"The truth, Christine."

She shook her head again.

"You don't know?"

She nodded.

"But you lie to me, Christine."

"I feel lightheaded, Erik." She stood unsteadily, but her knees gave away and she fell back into the couch. She began to rub her temples gingerly with her fingertips.

I pulled her face close to mine and squeezed her jaw in my hands. Her eyes were unfocused. "Why won't you go back to Raoul, Christine."

"What is in that tea, Erik?"

"Something that won't allow you to lie to me." I kissed her puckered lips. "Now tell me, my dear. Why won't you keep your promise to him?"

"I think I'm with child, Erik."

That evening, Raoul came to his door looking tattered and disheveled in his unevenly buttoned shirtand hair that hadn't been combed for days. I placed Christine into his arms and motioned for him to be silent. She was sleeping, and as the mother of his child, she should not be woken as she dreamed.


	22. 22

I never saw Christine Daae again after I laid her into my half-brother's arms that night. Of her pregnancy of course, the signs had been there: from that one morning when she'd awoken with terrible nausea to the night she had felt sick to her stomach after dinner. I'd scolded Jules to never buy from the same vendor again when it was really the womb that was vengeful, not the caviar. Don Juan was not so triumphant after all.

Now dear reader, you really thought that we were going to end quite well, didn't you? I can see your baffled expression now. You were waiting for somebody to conveniently die, weren't you?—Perhaps it was Raoul's death which you were expecting because the story would have been _much_ less complicated if someone had just killed him off from the start.

But you see, Prince Charming's can't die. They are not meant to be killed off so the antagonist can prey on the innocent little damsel. No, Prince Charming's are meant to lead valiant, courageous, noble lives. And Raoul fit the mold perfectly. I should be satisfied with his happiness. Why should I have been concerned that he possessed a common face of common features and a curiously handsome nose? All that should have concerned me was that Christine had given herself to him out more desperation than love. That was actually very altruistic of her, wasn't it?

Of course, when I had allowed him to take her he couldn't understand. It seemed impalpable to the boy that I would give my precious child away so simply. I really put her in his arms as if I felt nothing. Why should I show him that my heart was breaking when it had already been dead since the moment I knew she conceived? No, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeming me crumble into a heap in front of him. I stood upright, and transferred her politely from my arms to his.

"You—you…would—like—to come in?" He had stuttered.

"I trust you'll take good care of her." And to his bewildered expression I said, "She bears your child."

I had tipped my fedora, and turned to leave before he called out to me. I faced him slowly.

"How would you know if the child is mine, Monsieur?"

I pressed my lips together grimly. "Father Time would not allow it."

"Erik!"

I stopped.

"Would you like an invitation to the wedding?"

I laughed so terribly that I had to hold myself steady with my arms.

"No," I said finally through the mist of tears that had already begun to stream down my face. "That would not be necessary."

He did not close the door behind him until I had walked far away. I had listened for the sound of that click—and it echoed only several minutes later, when I stopped a brougham to take me back to the Opera.

I knew when she awoke that she would have a terrible cry. The boy would have to really to go out of his way to keep her from coming back—and even so, she wouldn't stop until she found a way to escape. I didn't think she thought it was very vital that she stay with the man who fathered her child—I now thought of her as who she always was: a selfish little monster.

I could not have stayed at the Garnier knowing that she knew of my whereabouts. The last thing I wanted was to find a pregnant woman making her way down here unaccompanied, visiting the man who her heart _truly_ belonged. Relocation was a must.

However, the curiosity of knowing just what she would do always kept me up at night. I'd left the coffin there for her, just as she would have liked. I could imagine her weeping over it once she saw it—She would be so dreadfully alone in my house from which music would never flow again. I could imagine her shock and horror when she sees the destroyed organ and the burned manuscripts of Don Juan Triumphant, ripped and strewn all over the floor. I could imagine her knocking upon Nadir's door, begging for the information she would never possess. Oh yes, Nadir was the one who'd announced my death in the newspaper.

"_Erik is dead."_ it read.

I'd framed that little article and thought it was the most marvelous and humourous little thing I'd ever read.

Nadir was too much of a moralist to forfeit the Vicomtess de Chagny's marriage for her quest for true love. How I love Daroga for his ethically pleasing ideals.

Search on forever, Christine. Knowing your incorrigible perseverance, you will be an old woman and still waiting, grasping onto the feather of hope that perhaps Erik will one day reappear to spirit you to a far away kingdom. At least, you'll always believe. Because you have such a _gift_ for believing in Fathers who aren't alive, Angels who don't exist, and Love which conquers all.

You have conquered us all, haven't you, Christine? You just can't have _everything_.

Especially when comes to fairy tale endings.


End file.
